


Unbelievers

by gayswampwitch



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/F, Im bad at summaries, Lesbian AU, Mentioned Drug Abuse, Slow Burn, katya's the new girl in town with questionable social skills, maybe ? idk if i have the self control for a real slow burn, the weird midwestern church au nobody wanted except for me, there's a decent amount of line dancing, they're gay and in love but also incredibly stupid, trixie's the pastor's daughter and has been repressed into oblivion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-02 21:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayswampwitch/pseuds/gayswampwitch
Summary: Katya tries to find a second chance in life, and ends up finding much more.Or: Two girls find common ground in the stars far above. And in their hatred for new-age country.





	1. i want every other freckle

Katya has never been in a town as small as Bayfield, save for the few stops she may have made to refill her tank or grab a Slim Jim in rural Illinois. But this isn’t just a bathroom stop on a road trip, this is a  _real_ town where  _real_ people live. At 523, this town’s population is the equivalent to how many customers a small Mcdonald’s back in Boston sees  _each day -_ if even that. And now, this tiny Mcdonald’s is her home.

That’s fucking insane.

Her mother only moved here a few years ago for a job opportunity at the new branch of the bank she managed, and Katya had been far too busy to come visit. Katya scoffs at herself; what a load of horse shit. In reality, she didn’t want her mother to see the bags under her eyes or how pale she was getting or how shaky her hands were. She wanted her mother to think college was great, studying art was great,  _she_ was great.

But, four months of rehab later and there is nowhere left for Katya to hide.

Her mother was supportive through the entire recovery process, and Katya is eternally grateful for that. She sent her get well cards with little kittens hanging from trees on them; it doesn’t get more loving than that. Still, that doesn’t keep guilt from rising up her throat or anxiety from grappling onto her spine when she realizes she’s less than fifteen minutes out from her mother’s house.

“C’mon, give me something soothing,” Katya mumbles to her radio, flipping through the stations for something that won’t give her more anxiety.

There is a grand total of three radio stations that come in clearly for her: one for 21st century pop-country (Ke-Hey Country, 93.2), one for classic country and southern rock (WBSZ, 104.3), and another that bridges the gap to provide bluegrass from all generations (Sunny’s, 99.9). None of them make her feel at ease. - especially not the occasional crackle of the evangelical station's preaching from the next town over that periodically interrupts the music.

Her fingers drum against the wheel, out of tune with whatever high-strung string instrument is playing. She squints her eyes at every passing street sign, trying to discern any words from them, but only gets the blur of her headlights shining onto the reflective letters. Katya regrets packing her glasses away this morning instead of just wearing them like a normal human being.

“ _Turn right in 200 feet._ ” Siri’s voice announces over a subpar banjo solo.

“Shit, fucking Christ,” Katya mumbles, doing her best to break smoothly at 55 miles per hour. She cringes when her seatbelt strains against her chest and her tires screech, but she manages nonetheless.

Katya is convinced these are the very streets that inspired every 90s classic horror flick. The dim light from the sparse street lamps, the cover of trees and huge bushes that anything could be lurking behind, and even the odd howl of a dog interrupting the silence of the night. It's all too unnerving.

Or maybe Katya’s just trying to project her anxiety onto the environment in an effort to pretend that  _that is the reason her hands are trembling and definitely not because she hasn't seen her mother in three years._

_"Your destination is on your right._ ”

Katya takes a deep breath and pulls into the gravel driveway the Great and All-Knowing Siri has led her to. She can vaguely recognize her mother’s Toyota, and most certainly recognizes the scrape across the side from when Katya sideswiped another car on the interstate. And the crack in the windshield from when Katya got stood up on a date and punched the windshield as hard as she could (her knuckles still don’t align perfectly). And the dent on the bumper from when Katya thought she was in drive, but accidentally reversed into a wall.

Katya maybe shouldn’t be trusted behind or near the wheel.

She doesn't have time to worry about how she looks or how she should greet her mother before the front door to the house swings open, and Katya can hear her mom squealing as she rushes towards the car. Katya quickly takes the key out of the ignition, unbuckles her seat belt, and gets out to greet her mom.

“Yekaterina!” Her mother flings her arms around her, mumbling a jumble of Russian phrases into her hair.

“I know, I know, I missed you too,” Katya wheezes out in a breathless laugh.

Her mother pulls back and grabs her face in her hands. She moves Katya’s face around to get different views, the dim porch light casting dramatic shadows across her face. “You’ve grown so much,” She smiles, and Katya finds a sense of familiarity in the Russian accent that the Midwest couldn’t soften.

_Drugs’ll do that to you_ , Katya thinks, but doesn’t dare say out loud because she knows this is a nice moment and she’s ruined more than enough nice moments in her life.

“Oh, старая девушка, I am so happy you are here. It has been too long.” Her mother fans her eyes with her hands dramatically, and Katya groans at the tears she can see forming.

“Oh no, don’t cry mom.” Katya whines.

“Yes, yes, I am strong woman,” Her mother brushes off, delicately wiping her eyes. “Where are your bags? Let’s get you settled.”

It’s another three hours of sitting on the couch with her mom, catching up. Katya avoids talking about rehab, and her mother thankfully doesn't ask. Instead, she steers the focus of the conversation to her friends in Boston. Thorgy is performing for an actual orchestra now rather than just for sewer rats in alleyways, Aja produced her first music video, Sasha’s doing commissioned artwork for some huge fashion brand that Katya doesn’t know, and Katya… has moved back in with her mother after suffering a mental breakdown and going to rehab.

It’s all uphill from here, though.

Katya is thankful when her mother changes the subject, even if it is to pitch this small town to her like a business deal. She talks about Bayfield with an adoration she never had for Boston. She tells her about how beautiful the changing of seasons is, the kind pastor with a kind family across the street, the library that’s hiring two streets over, the sunsets on the beach; her mother makes the midwest sound like a daydream.

Katya doesn’t know if she’ll ever share that appreciation, but she’s glad to see her mother has found her place amongst the Americans.

It's eleven when her description of the bagel shop is frequently interrupted by long yawns. “Ready for bed?” Katya questions after a particularly lengthy and wide yawn.

Her mother hums for a moment, considering. “I'll show you your room, and we can continue this bagel talk tomorrow after work.”

The guest room she has cleared for her is already a step up from her shitty apartment: it has actual  _bed sheets_. A luxury she once took for granted, and will now continue to take for granted. She sees other touches that were added, mostly relics from her teenage years. There’s an old poster of  _Contact_ (1997), some shitty art pieces that make Katya cringe now, and even the taxidermied raccoon she found at a garage sale. It warms Katya’s heart that she bothered to keep Cheryl, even if she hated her.

Her mother had even gone to the trouble of setting up an easel in front of the window along with an entire stack of fresh canvases propped up against it. She remembers telling her she was considering art school, remembers her mom insisting that a more conventional university would be better for her in the long run. She was right, of course, but it’s nice to see her support now anyways.

“Thank you so much, mom.” Katya tells her softly, turning to look at her mom in the doorway.

“I’m just so glad you’re okay. And that you’re here.” Her mother replies. “I’ll let you rest, but tomorrow we have dinner at the Mattels across the street. Very nice people, very nice cows.”

Katya squints at her mother, unsure if the cow comment was a language issue or just a phrasing issue. “I’ll make sure I’m up by then.”

“спокойной ночи, Katya.” Her mother gently closes the door.

Now it’s just Katya and her luggage.

She spends another hour unpacking her clothes, knowing that if she doesn’t do it tonight, she’ll never do it and will be damned to an eternity of digging through her suitcase every morning for the next month. She piles her paint and sketchbooks lazily next to the art supplies her mom bought, and stares down at the toiletries that remain in plastic bags deep in her suitcase pockets. She sighs deeply, a wave of lethargy washing over her; maybe she can unpack the rest of it tomorrow.

She spends longer than she would like to admit staring at the chunky asbestos on the ceiling, trying to make out shapes and figures. Sleep finally takes her as dragons dance across the ceiling, and continue to dance through her dreams.

★★★

Katya doesn’t wake up until late in the morning. The sun shines through the window, dying the inside of her eyelids a fiery orange. She blearily raises a hand to block out the rays, but drops it in favor of flinging the duvet over her head. She tosses and turns for another five minutes before resigning herself to the fact that there's no falling back to sleep now.

Katya considers a game plan for today, something her sponsor in rehab had taught her to do so she doesn’t wander aimlessly through each day:

  1. Take meds & vitamin supplements
  2. Eat (bagel shop?)
  3. Apply to work at the book shop
  4. ?????
  5. ?????
  6. Dinner with the cow people



Yeah, that’s definitely a game plan.

★★★

While Katya was intent on spending her day outside exploring the town, the amount of time actually spent doing so is abysmal. In truth, she spent an hour getting ready just to get a bagel, drop off her resume, and walk home. It’s underwhelming, but she got everything from her game plan done so she can’t be too upset at herself.

She takes the time to set up a canvas on the easel, using her bedside table to meticulously display her brushes and her paint for optimal use. And then she just stares at it. She tries to bide time by mixing colors together, rearranging her brushes (largest to smallest, smallest to largest, thickest to thinnest, thinnest to thickest, prettiest to ugliest, etc., etc., etc.), searching for some sort of inspiration.

It’s not until she sees her mother’s Toyota pull into the driveway that she gives up. She chooses instead to collapse onto her bed, surrounded by the sketchbooks she had previously been searching in for an ingenious breakthrough. Art has always been good to Katya, even when it was harsh and violent and empty.

“Dinner in thirty!” Her mother’s voice bounces calls through the house. She begrudgingly rises and journeys across the hall into the bathroom to make sure her hair still looks brushed and she hasn’t accidentally rubbed her mascara halfway across her face.

She looks at herself in the mirror, applying another coat of lipstick on the already faded red layer. It’s definitely a shade darker than what is appropriate for a nice, Christian dinner, but Katya doubts she cares much about what the town preacher has to say about her lipstick. Her mascara is fine, she decides, perfectly balancing on the border of glamorous and clumpy. It won’t matter anyways, the details are blurred behind her scratched-up glasses.

Her outfit says ‘conservative librarian who doesn’t understand that horizontal stripes and vertical stripes aren’t supposed to be worn together,’ but her makeup says ‘slutty forrest witch who can and will have sex with every villager’s wife.’ She’s never been one for moderation.

By the time they’ve reached the Mattels across the street, her mother has already spilled every piece of gossip she has on them in an incredibly fast-paced Russian monologue. Katya can barely keep up as syllables collide and blur, but she does her best to understand. It’s all petty rumors rooted in the fact that Mrs. Mattel had been married previously before moving here. Her mother speculates what she and her daughter could’ve been running from, theories ranging from an abusive husband to fleeing from the law after a nasty murder. She quietly hopes they’re true, only because it’d make Wisconsin exciting, but is sure the reality of it is far less interesting.

“Best behavior, remember.” Her mother whispers through her teeth as she rings the doorbell. Katya pretends not hear her.

“Nikita, it’s so fantastic that you came!” A man, presumably Mr. Mattel, greets excitedly, leaning over the threshold to hug her.

“Great to see you!” Her mother returns with the same vigor.

“And you must be the daughter I’ve heard so much about.” Mr. Mattel turns to her, outstretching a hand that Katya shakes graciously.

She cringes slightly, wondering what her mother could’ve possibly shared about her. As a follow-up thought, she wonders what Mr. Mattel could’ve shared with others about her, and what they might’ve shared with others. Her skin itches with uncertainty. “Katya. It’s very nice to meet you sir.”

“As it is you. I’m Pastor Mattel.”

_Pastor,_ Katya sighs internally,  _no first name, only pastor._

“Come in, come in!” He ushers them inside, stepping away from the doorframe expectantly. “We’re just finishing up the couscous, if you would like to take a seat in the living room while we do so.”

Katya can hear the distant cries of a toddler as she takes a seat on a luxuriously unscathed leather couch. Her mother sits just beside her, glancing back in the direction of the kitchen before continuing to gossip in Russian, now introducing other townspeople’s drama. One of the Chachki girls is always up to no good, the bookstore owner is tragically infertility, her co-worker has been cursed with the inability to count despite working at a bank; the town is absolutely brimming with crises. Katya only hums in acknowledgement as she half-listens and half-examines the living room they’ve been placed in.

It’s exactly what Katya had expected. There are family portraits all over the walls, both candid and professional. The mantle of the fireplace is neat and dusted, and the wallpaper behind it is entirely crack-less. She finds it almost unbelievable that people actually live here in a state of near perfection. Even the chandelier above them looks like it’s been cleaned every other week.

When the dinner is finally ready, it’s a blur of formalities as she’s introduced to the remainder of the family. It’s the definition of a nuclear family. A religious father, a loving mother, a beautiful baby boy, and an intimidatingly gorgeous daughter - all decorated with silky blonde hair and charming Midwestern accents. This is the American dream Katya was promised.

“It’s great to have you here, Katya, really. We hope you’ll like our little town.” Grace, the loving mother and all around flawless wife, tells her as she sits down at the dinner table.

“I hope so too, thank you so much for inviting me to dinner.” Katya responds softly, scooting her chair further into the table.

She watches as Grace secures her two year old into the highchair, very careful to not entrap his arms under the straps or catch his skin with the buckles. Katya knows she could never muster enough tenderness to care for a child like that, she’s jerky and bony and far too twitchy.

Katya breathes out a  _thank you_ as Pastor Mattel serves her a plate of tuna, couscous, and asparagus. Everyone slowly settles into their seats, Katya’s hands nervously twitching at her sides as she waits for everyone to be served. The bagel was surprisingly not as filling as she had expected and now her stomach yearns for poorly seasoned fish and vegetables.

Once all the plates have been put on placemats and everyone is in their seats, Katya reaches for her fork and spears a piece of asparagus. “So,” Pastor Mattel begins, “Who would like to say grace this evening?”

Katya freezes, asparagus centimeters from her wide open mouth. A rush of embarrassment washes over her as she quickly drops the fork onto her plate. She glances around the table, but the only person who seems to have noticed her is Beatrice, the most intimidating Barbie doll she’s ever met. Katya feels heat rise into her cheeks as Beatrice’s shoulders shake soundlessly and a hand covers her mouth to suppress her laughter.

Her mother offers to say grace, but Katya is too embarrassed to listen to anything other than the sound of her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

“ _Amen,_ ” The table echoes, and everyone is finally digging into their food.

A comfortable silence washes over the two families, mostly filled with the sounds of forks scraping against ceramic plates, and the occasional airplane noise Grace makes to feed Bryce.

“So, Katya, what brings you out to Wisconsin?” Grace asks, keeping a watchful eye on her baby as he shoves fistfuls of pureed carrots into his mouth.

“Oh,” Katya glances at her mother, unsure if Grace is just asking to be polite or if she genuinely doesn’t know. Either way, Katya goes with a safe answer she had rehearsed in her head. “I was just hoping to take a break. College is stressful, especially when you’re over a thousand miles away from your mom, you know.”

“Awww,” Grace coos, and Katya knows she chose the right answer.

“You see, Beatrice? You shouldn’t be so eager to leave.” Pastor Mattel chimes in, tutting the girl across the table.

“I know, I know,” She drones softly as if she’s heard this a thousand times before, ducking her head to focus on cutting herself a piece of tuna.

“It’s good to explore the world outside your town, though,” Katya speaks up, guilty that she accidentally fueled whatever agenda Pastor Mattel was pushing on his daughter. “Especially in such an isolated community like this, I’m sure some time away could be very beneficial.”

He purses his lips in a way that tells Katya he definitely doesn’t agree, but refuses to start a fight with a guest in his home, “Of course. Maybe we’ll take a vacation down south this Christmas.”

“Oh, that would be so lovely. I hear Georgia is lovely during the winter months.” Grace swoons.

Beatrice looks up at Katya and gives her a soft smile, something decidedly thankful. Katya returns it, nodding her head slightly in acknowledgement. She understands the difference between wanting to leave the small town you grew up in and having to take mental health leave from the big city you’ve always been free to leave.

Dinner is a lot of polite conversation, which Katya loathes. There’s no meat or substance, only  _oh, the bagel shop is adding a new cream cheese flavor!_ and  _wow, I didn’t realize how much better a baby blue looks with my skin than a pastel blue_. The worst part about social dinners is that even when everyone’s obviously done, you’re still obligated to sit at the table until the small talk has run dry.

Katya can feel the anxiety of remaining stagnant begin to creep up her skeleton, twitching her legs and making her fingers dig into the palms of her hands to leave tiny fingernail imprints. “I’m going to take a step outside,” She tells the table, trying to seem as collected as possible, “What should I do with my plate?”

In the next moment, Grace has risen from her spot to collect it from in front of her, “I’ll take care of it honey, you’re the guest.”

Katya nods graciously. Her mind runs through a script of social niceties to assure that she is as fantastic of a guest as her mother wants her to be, “Thank you so much, it was absolutely delicious.” She tells them somewhat robotically, making her way towards the back patio. There’s a resounding chorus of agreement as Katya slips out through the sliding door.

It’s dark now, nearly pitch black with the absence distant city lights and sporadic street lamps. The only illumination comes from the living room chandelier shining out through the glass doors, providing a soft glow on the first few feet of the grassy backyard. Katya takes a deep breath, letting the cool night air bite into her skin and remind her what it’s like to feel alive. The anxiety that’s ruminate deep within her bones thins, and Katya feels her shoulder relax.

“Hey,” A soft voice says behind her, and Katya yelps in response.

“Jesus,” She gasps, turning quickly to face Beatrice.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you didn’t hear me when I came out.” Beatrice winces in sympathy.

She clutches a hand to her chest, feeling her heart pound against it. “No, I’m nothing if not completely clueless to my surroundings.” She brushes off.

Katya wonders, briefly, if she’s ever seen anyone look so pretty, bathed in moonlight.

“Well, uh, I’m out here doing my nightly chores. I don’t know if your interests lie with cows and big haystacks, or if you want to stay out here staring into the distance.” Beatrice starts to move further into the yard, watching Katya over her shoulder to see if she would follow.

“Luckily for you, my interests lie solely in cows and haystacks.” She responds after a moment, chasing closely behind Beatrice.

“Oh yeah? Well you’re about to lose your mind.”

Beatrice leads her to a small barn at the edge of their property, and Katya notes how experienced she is in navigating there in complete darkness. She, on the other hand, stumbles blindly, following the silhouette she can barely see. Beatrice holds the door upon for Katya, but Katya only gets a few steps in before tripping over a pile of dislodged hay. She decides, instead, to stand still until she can see. Her nose wrinkles at the smell that clouds her nostrils; manure, grass, and a rush of something floral whenever Beatrice brushes past her. She listens to Beatrice’s footsteps as she travels through the barn to yank a piece of twine, and a small light bulb dangling from the ceiling flickers on. Katya has to blink several times to adjust to the sudden illumination as lightbulb imprints flash across her eyelids.

“I was promised big, beautiful cows.” Katya says upon looking around the barn and only finding haystacks and various personal effects. A guitar propped against one of the wooden support beams, a small stack of textbooks spread on top of haystack, and packages of powder carefully lined up on top of a platform above a water trough.

“Wow, I did not expect you to be such a cow  _fiend_.” She grins as she maneuvers through piles of hay to reach a small bell at the end, and opens the gate next to it. She rings it once, twice, and Katya can hear a very distant moo. “It’ll take a few minutes for them to get here, I hope you can wait that long.”

Katya drops herself onto one of the hay bales, sighing deeply. “Patience is one of my greatest virtues.”

“Along with your undying love for cows?” Beatrice takes a seat on the bale neighboring Katya’s, one that’s maybe half a foot shorter than her own, and props herself up with her elbow, chin in palm.

“Absolutely. Those are actually my only two positive attributes: cow-loving and patience. Other than that, I’m an absolute monster.”

Beatrice laughs loudly, and Katya physically cannot stop looking at her and grinning like a fool. In the dim light, she can barely see freckles popping out against Beatrice’s nose and the shine of her lip gloss. Her eyes are a soft brown, the kind of brown that Katya always thought was so underrated because it exudes a certain warmth that is absent in her own clinically green eyes. Katya only realizes she’s being creepy when Beatrice has stopped laughing and has turned herself to face Katya completely.

“So Beatrice -” She begins, but is almost immediately interrupted.

“Trixie, actually.” She corrects, “I prefer being called Trixie.”

Katya nods for a moment, weighing the two names with the scale in her mind. “That’s pretty fitting, actually.  _Trixie_. Nice.” She feels stupid as soon as she says it. Nice? What is she, a fourteen year old boy?

“Yeah. Nice.” Trixie repeats, the hint of a teasing smile playing on her lips.

Katya will admit it’s been a long time since she’s so much as flirted with another girl, which really is making it  _very_ difficult for her to fully assess the situation. Is this just the midwestern charm Sasha warned her about, or is Trixie giving off major sapphic vibes?

“So, Trixie Mattel, tell me all about these cows.” Katya breaks the soft silence that has filled the barn.

“Oh, you really won’t let these cows go.” Trixie laughs, something much softer than it was last time, but it makes Katya’s cheeks flush nonetheless. “Well, there are four of them. They’re all incredibly sweet, and I love them.” Trixie shrugs simply.

“Is this like a familial endeavour, or is it just you who cares for them?” Katya feels kind of stupid grilling Trixie on her cows, but she’s not sure what else would be appropriate to ask her. Are you gay? You into eating pussy? You into getting your pussy ate?

“These big babies are all mine,” She says with a fondness in her voice, “I have to wake up a few hours before classes every morning to make sure they’re fed and milked and happy. Then, if it’s going to be over eighty degrees, I have to make sure the sprinkler system is set to spray every two hours so their heat load isn’t too much. During winter, I milk them when I get home instead, but I end up having to wake up just as early in the mornings anyways because they’re  _much_ slower in the snow.” Trixie rambles, punctuating every sentence with a dramatic hand movement or sigh.

“Jesus,” Katya mutters, eyebrows raised to wrinkle her forehead.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make that a TED Talk.” Trixie cringes at herself.

“Oh, but that’s definitely the best TED Talk I’ve heard, mama. Global warming, who? No, I’m only here for cow care.”

Trixie’s laugh is somewhere between a screech and a cackle, and it makes Katya grin in delight. Trixie pats one of her hands against Katya’s knee as her laughter fades into a soft giggle.

“No, but really, that sounds like a whole fuckload of work.” Katya tells her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cared for an organism so dearly. Even her cactus back in Boston died - and it’s really fucking hard to kill a cactus.

“They definitely are, but I think it’s pretty fulfilling.” Trixie shrugs, looking back towards the gate. The sound of heavy hooves against grass echoes through the barn as cows begin filing into it.

Trixie stands to usher them inside and lock the gate behind them once they've all entered. “Is now a good time to mention I was lying earlier?” Katya speaks up.

Trixie looks up at her, “About your willingness to give your entire life for cows?”

“Yeah. I’ve actually never been this close to a cow. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever  _seen_ a cow in person before.” Katya confides, taking a very cautious step towards them.

“Katya, if I didn’t know better, I would say you were afraid.” Trixie leans down to pet one of the cows, almost tauntingly as she smirks up at Katya the entire time.

“No, that’d be irrational. They’re just… Uh… Bigger. Than I expected.” She responds slowly as one of the other cows brushes against the skirt of her dress.

Katya wouldn’t say she’s afraid of the animal itself, but  more so she’s afraid of making a fool of herself when trying to interact with it. It’s the fear of that shameful feeling when you meet your friend’s dog for the first time and reach a hand out towards it, just for it to bark relentlessly at you. Then you have to explain that dogs  _usually love you_ , but it’s too late to defend yourself because now you're the asshole that Pebbles The Chihuahua hates. That’s the fear nailing itself to the inner lining of Katya’s stomach.

Trixie looks like she wants to tease her about it, but settles for something far gentler, “They’re really sweet, you know.”

Katya breathes deeply through her nose, squatting down to be eye-level with the cow.  She read somewhere that animals view you as non-threatening when you’re the same height as them. Or maybe it was about it being easier for them to tear out your jugular. Katya gulps; maybe cows are also fairly intimidating. Still, she reaches a hand out and tentatively strokes matted fur.

“This is Dairy,” Trixie speaks up, her voice becoming high and nasally, “She’s likes long walks on the beach and just, like, is searching for her other half. You know, somebody who isn’t afraid to splurge for that extra guac at Chipotle.”

Katya wheezes out a laugh, waving her arms animatedly. “How did you find my Tinder bio?” Katya tries to say between laughs, but it comes out strangled and breathy. Trixie laughs anyways, half at her own joke and half at Katya’s response.

“I would give you introductions to the rest of the cows like that, but I don’t think it’d be as funny.” She stands back up to look over her small herd, “We have Dairy, Cream, Butter, and Cheese.” She points to each one individually.

Katya’s laughing again before she has a chance to relax from her last fit, slapping her hands against her thighs. “I can’t do it, I absolutely cannot do it.” She struggles to say.

“What?” Trixie whines. She does her best to look offended, but her cheeks twitch in effort to stop herself from smiling.

“Dairy? Butter?” Katya asks incredulously through heavy breaths.

“I am a creative woman!” Trixie tries to defend herself, but Katya’s laughter only gets louder. “I thought I was being clever.”

Katya immediately backtracks, waving her hands. “No, no, I love it. I love naming your animals after their own byproducts.”

“I did not invite you into my sacred barn just for you to drag me and my cows through the mud like this.”

“You’re right, I am sorry, I should not have taken this experience in vain.” Katya apologizes, biting her lip to keep herself composed.

Trixie narrows her eyes at her, but says nothing. She turns her attention back to the cows, petting them all individually. Katya stays next to Dairy, who is clearly older than the three others. She’s much broader, and her sighs have a cadence that most definitely screams old lady to Katya. When Dairy folds her legs beneath her, front legs first and then back legs, Katya settles onto the ground completely to continue petting her. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Trixie maneuvers through the barn, preparing them for the night.

After having scattered piles of hay, refilled the water trough, and carefully made sure anything nonedible is out of reach, Trixie takes a seat next to Katya. Trixie smooths down her pink dress over her thighs carefully, making sure it settles before tucking her feet underneath herself. Katya feels slightly embarrassed for not taking the same precaution with her own dress; she’s sure if she was in Trixie’s line of sight while sitting down next to Dairy, Trixie would have gotten an eyeful of panty. It’s the trashy city slicker in her.

One of the other cows nudges Trixie’s cheek with a wet nose, and she scrunches up her own nose in response. Trixie mumbles something to the cow, scratching behind its ears. Katya feels a sense of envy for Trixie, for having something so calming and constant in her life like these cows. A sort of deep bond that has always seemed unattainable to Katya. The most she has ever had was Cheryl the Taxidermied Racoon, and Cheryl could never love her back.

“Are you free tomorrow night?” Trixie breaks the comfortable silence, pulling Katya out of her thoughts.

“I suppose so.”

Trixie looks at her for a moment thoughtfully. “Good.”

Katya waits a moment, listening for any sort of follow up. She gives Trixie a pointed look, and motions for her to continue. “And?”

“Do you want to come with me to a super lame party with other small town burnouts?”

Katya sucks in a sharp breath. She knows it’s a bad idea. “I’m not sure I’m much of a party girl.” She says instead of  _I’m a recovering drug addict and the party scene is a very dangerous place for me right now._

Trixie pouts at her, one of her hands raising to tug on the sleeve of Katya’s striped cardigan. “It’ll be fun, I promise. The moment you’re not having fun, we can leave and do something else.”

Katya mulls over her options for a moment: does she take the opportunity to hang out with her pretty neighbor and risk relapse, or does she stay at home and masturbate all night? Katya knows her sponsor would urge her away from any sort of drug-laden environment, but Katya considers how powerful she would feel to be able to say no to drugs. To feel so in control in a situation where she would normally crack beneath the weight of temptation. And, who is she kidding, Trixie is  _so pretty._

“I guess,” Katya concedes.

Trixie squeals excitedly, “Oh, great! Trust me, I will make it my sole duty to make sure you have a great time.” She promises, bumping their shoulders together.

Katya feels her phone vibrate in her cardigan's pocket, and ignores it in favor of enjoying this moment. There’s something so calming about the air and the people here, and Katya considers, just for a moment, that maybe her mother wasn’t entirely over exaggerating.

Her phone buzzes again, and Trixie gives her pocket a pointed look. “Okay, okay,” Katya breathes out, pulling her phone out of her front pocket.

(9:52) **Мама** : готов?

(9:54)  **Мама** : я устал :(

(9:54)  **екатерина** : да, на обратном пути

Trixie pears over her shoulder as Katya types out her response, and Katya doesn’t bother shielding her phone from Trixie’s prying eyes. It’s not like it’s sensitive information, or even in a language she could understand. “I almost forgot you’re just as Russian as your mom.” She says in awe.

“That’s fine, I usually forget I’m Russian when I’m not with my mom.” Katya locks her phone, slipping it back into her pocket and standing up. Trixie is right behind her, brushing dust off of her skirt. “She wanted to know if I was ready to go.”

“Oh, okay. I can walk you out.” Trixie offers softly, already travelling across the barn to close the gate and yank the light switch.

Trixie is a few steps ahead of her when she exits the barn, and Katya completely loses her. She can vaguely see the light of the main property shining through to her like a beacon, and does her best to step towards it as cautiously as possible. She can hear Trixie’s soft footsteps against damp grass as she moves, and uses that as a sort of guide to the terrain. She pushes her glasses further up her nose, the tips of her eyelashes brushing against the lense, as if better vision might help her hear Trixie’s footsteps better.

Then, as if sensing her struggle, Trixie’s hand is wrapped around her wrist and pulling her along. Katya tries to ignore her stomach’s churning as she’s pulled towards the main property, which grows from a distant glowing orb to a well-lit backyard. Trixie releases her wrist as soon as they’re within visibility of the house, and Katya swear she’ll be able to feel the imprint of her fingers on her wrist for  _days_.

“You meet the cows?” Her mother asks when Katya and Trixie approach.

“Yeah,” Katya responds breathlessly. “Absolutely life-changing.”

Trixie smiles softly, turning her attention to Bryce as he waddles towards her. “Up,” He grumbles, reaching his arms up demandingly at Trixie. She obliges without contest, swooping him into her arms and propping him up on her hip in the way Katya has seen every good mother do in the films. Katya wonders if the Mattels are just naturally nourishing, or if the midwest has bred their women to be so beautiful and instinctually kind.

“Yes, very good cows.” Her mother agrees, “Are you ready? Work tomorrow is very early.”

Katya nods slowly. She wants to make a cow joke or maybe a joke about the dinner, but the words get trapped in a middle-space and just don’t piece together like she wished they would. She settles for just the nod.

Pastor Mattel opens the sliding door to the backyard with the screeching sound of rubber on glass as he does. “Just checking to see if you were heading out now! Didn’t want you to leave without a proper send-off.”

Katya glances behind the Pastor and through the glass, to where Grace is bustling through the kitchen and dining room to clean the dishes and placemats.

“Yes, night is upon us.” Nikita smiles.

“Wow, too foreboding.” Katya comments, amazed that sometimes her mother can’t construct a simple sentence but other times she’ll say things that belong in nineteenth century gothic literature.

Her mother only smiles in response, and Katya makes a mental note to define foreboding to her later.

“Right, well, it was so fantastic to meet you, Katya.” Pastor Mattel shakes her hand with both of his own.

“It was great to meet you too! And your lovely family.” Katya gestures to the rest of them. Trixie catches her eye and grins brightly, and Katya can’t stop her own smile from widening in response. 

★★★

When Katya gets home, she sits down in front of her easel and stares at it again. She mixes colors mindlessly, picking up brushes and just smearing paint across the canvas. She lets her hands run free. Only when she starts to make out shapes in color blotches does she decide on a subject; it’s like her own personal Rorschach Test. She can see soft freckles against pink, a light shimmer of lip gloss, blonde waves, tender fingers - she clenches her eyes shut almost as soon as she realizes what she’s doing.

Immediately, she’s defending herself against the harsh onslaught of her own thoughts: it’s not Trixie. It’s a perfectly generic midwestern girl, inspired by the  _environment,_ not by specific people. It’s, if anything, a statement of the feminine construct in rural communities.

She still keeps the painting stay as abstract as possible, just in case. She only paints fragments of Not-Trixie, hidden within splotches of color and shapes, too afraid to make the images clear and confront exactly what she’s painted. When she looks at the piece as a whole, she can barely see any coherence to it, other than the soft pastels of the color scheme. But she knows, in the back of her mind, the pieces click together like a Rubix cube.

She goes to bed simultaneously satisfied and terrified.


	2. and i'm getting older, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ain't no party like a midwest party because a midwest party has a lot of repressed souls and cheap liquor

Katya wakes up to an incessant buzzing at her bedside table. Her hand shoots out from beneath her blankets and slaps around the surface, blindly trying to grab at her phone to silence it. She pulls it under the covers, where she can squint down at the screen in distaste without the commitment of seeing the sun.

There’s an influx of new group chat messages and promotional emails from Bath & Body Works in her notification bar, and she groans down at the screen. She wishes she could just live off the grid as some sort of grassland dwelling hermit, but she knows she has to stay in contact with everyone back in Boston if she wants any type of support network here. And if she wants great deals on new fragrances.

 

(10:52) [ **Th]orgy** : i brought home wings last night from wingstop. couldnt finish them. they r pineapple habanero if anybody wants them

(10:54)  **Ajajajaja** : that sounds disgusting

(10:55) [ **Th]orgy** : shut up u eat ass 4 breakfast. im allowed 2 put sweets on my savories.

(10:55) [ **Th]orgy** : u dont even live w us, my wing offer doesn’t apply to u.

(10:56)  **Ajajajaja** : your right :)

(10:56)  **Ajajajaja** : thank god. your place is a fucking dumpster

(11:01) [ **Th]orgy** : you’re*

(11:01)  **Ajajajaja** : i hope you die in a fire

(11:01)  **Ajajajaja** : you’re place is a fucking dumpster*

(11:02) [ **Th]orgy** : how can someone so pretty be so stupid

(11:03)  **Soy Boy** : Oh, I ate them already soooooo

(11:03)  **Soy Boy** : Okay which of you infertile land mammals changed my name to Soy Boy. I’ll kick yr ass. I have enough testosterone to fuel an army.

**Soy Boy** has changed  **Soy Boy’s** nickname to  **Willam !**

(11:07)  **Willam !** : You’re all pussies for not stepping up for a punch in the titty.

(11:08)  **Ajajajaja:** aaaaaa

(11:32)  **Sasha** : Anybody else concerned Katya hasn’t responded to messages since she got to The Cursed State?

(11:33) [ **Th]orgy** : i can’t believe my good friend katy is dead.

(11:34)  **Ajajajaja:** rip katy

(11:35)  **Willam !** : @ **dumpster fire**

(11:35)  **Willam !** : @ **dumpster fire**

(11:36) [ **Th]orgy** : @ **dumpster fire**

(11:36)  **Ajajajaja** : @ **dumpster fire**

(11:38)  **Willam !** : @ **dumpster fire** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(11:38)  **Hot Topic’s #1 Customer** : @ **dumpster fire**

(11:40)  **dumpster fire** : i hate all of u n im glad i left u all in massachussetts where u belong

(11:41)  **Ajajajaja:** SHE LIVES!!

(11:41) [ **Th]orgy** : baby!!!!!!!!!

(11:41)  **Sasha** : I really thought the conservatives had swallowed you whole, you beautiful lesbian.

(11:42)  **dumpster fire** : i live to fuck another day

(11:43)  **Hot Topic’s #1 Customer** : Tell us about wosconsin!

(11:43)  **Hot Topic’s #1 Customer** : Wisconsin*

(11:43)  **dumpster fire** : ppl r really nice & everythings so pretty. i applied for a job and met some cows

(11:44) [ **Th]orgy** : so jealous!!!! wish i could hide out in a forest & make music for the bears & cows

(11:45)  **dumpster fire** : idk if thats what its like here... but ur always welcome to come over 

(11:45)  **dumpster fire** : i made an art yesterday

(11:46)  **Sasha** : Send a picture!

(11:46)  **Ajajaja** : pictures!!!

(11:46) [ **Th]orgy** : SHOW me the ART

(11:47)  **dumpster fire** : [one multimedia message]

(11:49)  **Ajajaja** : ???? ive never seen a Katya Original that wasn’t grotesque & existential

(11:50)  **Sasha** : Yeah, this is like… a surprisingly soft piece?

(11:51)  **Sasha** : It’s great though! The colors look incredible, and I can almost feel the heart put into it. I’m all for you experimenting with styles and letting yourself be vulnerable in ways that aren’t covered in blood!

(11:52)  **Hot Topic’s #1 Customer** : You met a girl!

(11:52) [ **Th]orgy** : SHES IN LOVE AND MADE THIS GAY ART

(11:52) [ **Th]orgy** : me n dela just cracked the code

(11:53)  **dumpster fire** : fuq u i just think pink is pretty

(11:53)  **dumpster fire** : its not that deep !

(11:53)  **Ajajajaja** : ...

(11:53)  **dumpster fire** : im never sharing art again.

(11:54) [ **Th]orgy** : whats her name!!!!!!

(11:54)  **Ajajajaja** : you whore tell us about her !

(11:55)  **dumpster fire** : stop cyberbullying me im just a lowly spinster

 

Katya drops her phone into the sheets and turns over, determined to ignore the rest of the group chat. Katya’s sure if they weren’t already acquainted with her art, it would be impossible to tell that it was in any way a romantic piece - which it’s not to begin with. Because that would be ridiculous.

Katya buries her face in the pillow and groans.

##  ★★★

She wakes up again at three to her phone vibrating from where it’s wedged itself underneath her shoulder. She blearily looks at the screen, and can barely make out the unfamiliar phone number.

“Hello?” She answers, voice raspy with sleep.

“Is this Katya… Zamo, uh,” The speaker hesitates, and Katya recognizes the fumble over her name.

“This is she.” Katya mumbles before the speaker has a chance to mispronounce her name.

“This is Ginger from the library. I reviewed your resume last night, and just wanted to set up an interview for the job position you applied for.” Her accent is distinctly southern, and it takes Katya a second longer to decipher what she’s saying.

When she does, her eyes widen and her heart stutters. “Oh! Yeah, that’d be fantastic!”

“Okay, well, does today work for you? I know it’s short notice, but it’d just be easy to get it out of the way as soon as possible.”

Katya wants desperately to shout _yes, of course,_ but she realizes she has no idea when she’s supposed to go to Trixie’s party. Mentally, Katya kicks herself for not getting her number to ask. She tries to do the mental math: subtract the current time from a possible party time, add extra hours to account for outfit changes, walking time, and general tomfoolery. Plug it in to the quadratic formula, subtract the negative, find the tangent, divide by 12(3x-7y) \- 

“I, uh - I’m sure I can.” Katya responds when she realizes she has no idea how to perform basic mathematics.

“Just come in before closing, sweetheart. There’s really no use in making appointments when there’ll only be one of them.” Ginger sighs into the receiver, making Katya’s phone crackle with static.

“Sounds great! Thank you so much!” Katya’s free fist pumps the air repeatedly, already celebrating.

“No problem, see ya soon.”

There’s a click on the other side, and Katya is leaping out of bed and dancing through her room. Usually, the application process for her was dropping off her resume, waiting a month, and giving up, so this was especially refreshing.

“Hell yeah! Hell yeah! Hell yeah!” Katya chants to herself, flipping through the clothes in her closet to find something that not only makes her look  _ good _ , but also  _ literate _ .

Somewhere between getting dressed and leaving her house, she sends a quick message to the group chat for the sake of keeping them updated.

(3:42)  **dumpster fire** : job interview now, wish me luck!

(3:44)  **Ajajajaja** : omg gl bb!

(3:45) [ **Th]orgy** : ur a smart bitch, i know u got this in the bag!

(3:45)  **Willam !** : I can’t believe my little drug addict is going out and getting herself a real job!

(3:46)  **dumpster fire** : ex-drug addict****

(3:47)  **Willam !** : IDK if you ever graduate from being a drug addict

(3:48)  **Slay Coulee** : You can do it! We’re rooting for you out here!

(3:49)  **dumpster fire** : thanks guys :D

##  ★★★

The interview goes okay. It’s not the most amazing interview, and if Katya were to spend time concentrating on the specifics of how she acted and what she said, she would certainly feel embarrassed. But she knows better than to overanalyze every spare moment of every interaction at this point in her life.

The time between getting home and the possible party time is spent showering, finding something decent to wear, and chain smoking in her mother’s rose bushes out back. It’s a rough hour and a half.

Katya is nearly spot on in predicting Trixie would arrive around seven because, sure enough, her doorbell is rung at 7:30.

Katya pauses in front of the door to make sure she’s entirely composed. Her breathing is even, her hair is brushed, her sweater is smooth, she doesn’t smell like sweat and cigarettes; she’s ready. Yet, when she opens the door, she feels like any attempts to preen herself were for naught, because Trixie looks  _ fantastic _ , and Katya would only ever be a hobgoblin in comparison.

“Hi, do you have a second to talk about our lord and savior, Jesus Christ?” Trixie grins down at Katya, a gold-detailed Bible tucked between her arm and her chest.

“I  _ will  _ close this door on you, Trixie Mattel.” Katya warns, and hopes her look is stern enough for Trixie to believe she means it.

Clearly it wasn't, because Trixie starts giggling relentlessly. “No, no, please! My dad wanted me to give you this as a sort of welcoming gift. I’m also supposed to invite you to church this Sunday.” She extends her Bible towards Katya, who takes it from her hands slowly. Katya wishes American movies didn't predispose her to the assumption that welcoming gifts would be fruit baskets or cherry pies, because this is incredibly disappointing in contrast.

“Oh, uh, thank you.” Katya won't pretend to be a good Christian, but she will, at the very least, pretend to be one.

“You totally don't have to go, though. It's just a lot of, like, lecturing and singing. And you don’t even have to keep the Bible, I’ll tell my dad you cried out of pure joy when I handed it to you no matter what.” Trixie shrugs, shifting from foot to foot.

“No, no, I love… Y’know, God. Jesus Christ. Mary. The whole gang.” Katya wishes she was dead at the bottom of a well somewhere.

Trixie smiles like she  _ wants _ to laugh and make fun of Katya’s inability to engage in religious banter, but instead motions for her to step out of the house. “Let's get out of here, Bible Thumper. We have some underage drinking to engage in.” She turns on her heels to leave the premises.

“Speak for yourself, Ms. Teen Wisconsin. This bitch is a full-fledged senior citizen.” Katya defends herself, placing the Bible down on the console table next to her to join a collection of car keys and tiny succulents.

“Oh yeah? And did you remember to bring your Life Alert tonight, grandma?” Trixie grins over her shoulder at Katya. 

She doubles over in laughter, and Trixie laughs along at her own joke. “Wow! I had no idea Honey Boo Boo was so mean-spirited.” Katya wheezes out. 

Trixie screeches, raising a hand to her chest in offense. “I redact my invite! You can stay home and rot.”

They near the Mattel Residence on the other side of the street, Trixie straying from Katya to approach the driver’s side of an old pickup truck. Katya’s laughter doesn’t die down until she’s at the passenger side, heaving herself up onto a grey suede seat.

“So, Barbie drives a Ford?” She asks once she’s buckled her seat belt and settled into the farm-chic truck.

Trixie rolls her eyes, jamming her keys into the ignition. “It’s not by choice, I can tell you that.”

It’s a dusty truck to say the least, something that looks like it’s barely survived the years. Even its interior looks like it might fall apart if touched with anything more than a featherlight brush. The juxtaposition of Trixie, the epitome style and cleanliness, and this 1995 Ford F-250 that requires a prayer to start is almost laughable.

“So tell me about this gathering. What is it, like, a high school cast party for Grease?”

Trixie slings an arm behind Katya’s headrest and twists her body around to look through the rear windshield as she backs up, shooting Katya a glare as she does. “I’ll have you know, I have my high school diploma and approximately thirty-two college credits.” She mumbles out, clearly more focused on getting out of the driveway than defending her honor.

“So you’re like, what? Twenty?”

“Nineteen.” Trixie has to physically exert herself to switch gears from reverse to neutral, and then to first.

“Oh,” Katya sighs, eyes flitting between the stick shift that awkwardly sprouts from the steering wheel itself and the foot periodically switching from the clutch to the acceleration.

“I want to say you’re a  _ generous _ thirty-two years old.”

Katya’s eyes snap up to Trixie’s face to make an exaggerated frown, even though she knows Trixie is too focused on the road to notice. “You’re really going in hard on these old bones, aren’t you?”

Trixie smiles, exhaling through her nose in a breathy laugh. “No, really, how old are you? I thought you were around my age, but I don’t really think I’m good at guessing ages.”

“Twenty-three.”

Trixie nods slowly, “I wasn’t too far off, I guess.”

“I guess not.”

The conversation tapers off as Katya turns to look out beyond the passenger window. She can’t see very far ahead of her, only the occasional porch light or reflective street sign stands out against the pitch black that surrounds them in all directions. She knows that even if the sun were still out, she wouldn’t be able to recognize anything, so she doesn’t bother to try to decipher any signs or landmarks.

Trixie fiddles with the radio incessantly. It’s definitely the newest part of this truck, and had to have been manually installed within the past few years. Even then, it’s still somewhat archaic (meaning circa 2010) with a lack of bluetooth or auxiliary capabilities, and Katya can only imagine the piece of junk that was in its place before.

Trixie flips through radio channels, but every single channel seems to have agreed upon playing advertisements at the same time. Trixie just lets out a frustrated sigh and jabs the CD-ROM button after having flipped through every available channel at least three times, officially giving up on her local broadcasts.

It takes a solid minute of the CD before Katya can vaguely recognize one of the background vocals, and then the first thirty seconds of the second song in the tracklist for her to connect the dots in her head. “Fleetwood Mac?” She questions.

“Yeah, Rumours.” Trixie responds, her fingers tapping against the steering wheel in rhythm with the song’s beat.

“Rumours?”

“The album. It’s called Rumours.”

“Oh,” In the exact instant it’s too late, she remembers that it is, in fact, the name of Fleetwood Mac’s most popular and beloved album.

But Trixie doesn’t seem to mind that she’s completely inept at knowing bands and albums and singles. She just hums along to the songs and sways as much as her seatbelt allows her to. Katya tries to keep her eyes on the windshield ahead of her, but can’t help when she ends up watching Trixie out of the corner of her eye.

They get through half of Rumours before Trixie turns into a long dirt road surrounded by miles of pure nothing. Katya can see, in the far distance, the red flicker of a bonfire. As they grow closer, backlit figures of people sitting and dancing and talking become more clear and the fire becomes more prominent.

“Oh, actually, I think you’re legally obligated to tell me you’re taking me to a fucking sacrificial gathering for tweens.” Katya motions to the fire exasperatedly.

“Satanism isn’t just for the goth kids anymore.” Trixie shrugs, grinning from ear to ear.

She pulls the truck off-road to park amongst other equally distraught looking cars that have found pseudo parking spaces in the large dirt patch of the yellowing field. Katya feels dread settle in her stomach, somewhat disappointed that she couldn’t live forever in the limbo of the car ride. Now, she has to socialize, be actively present, and maybe even  _ dance. _

Trixie pulls the keys out of the ignition, cutting off the opening chords of Landslide, which Katya is not proud to admit is the only Fleetwood Mac song she knows the lyrics to. Trixie twists her body around to heave a small pink backpack up from behind Katya’s seat, and shoves the keys inside the front pocket of it.

“Are you ready?” Her smile is dangerously devilish.

Katya, who had been watching Trixie dumbly instead of unbuckling her seat belt or making sure her sweater was fashionably asymmetrical, nods quickly as she springs back into action.

As soon as she steps out of the car, heavy bass thrums through her bones and filtered Top 40s fill her ears. She can smell the cheap liquor and burning wood, which is a scent combination she’s ashamed to have smelled before. Trixie walks her to the bonfire, backpack dangling by the strength of her fingertips against the top strap.

“Trixie!” A voice cries out from the bonfire, immediately accompanied by more shouts of excitement from the surrounding girls.

Of course Trixie is popular, because why wouldn’t she be?

They approach a small group of girls sitting together on a wooden log laid out against dirt, barely far enough away from the fire to not be in danger. Katya thinks the theme of this party is somewhat discombobulated; logs in the middle of a dirt field and music that was by no means the country pop she had grown to associate this state with. It feels like a quilt sewn together with patches of fabric from entirely different craft stores.

“Oh, you blonde bitch, we were sure you wouldn’t even come!” One of the girls, angular and pretty, shouts from her seat.

“Of course I came,” Trixie drops the backpack at her feet, unzipping it and pulling out two bottles of liquor, “And I brought theeeessseee.” They all squeal in excitement, and Katya remembers when alcohol was still exciting.

“I love you, Trixie. And your parents’ alcohol cabinet. I can’t keep doing just Milk’s Budweiser, it’s just not right.” Another girl says exasperatedly, lifting her Budweiser can above her head to prove her point.

“I also brought the new neighbor, Katya!” Trixie motions to Katya beside her, green apple vodka still in hand. “Katya, this is Adore, Kim, Naomi, Violet, and Pearl.”

Everyone waves, and Katya does her best to associate each name with their fire-lit faces. They’re all outstandingly pretty, and Katya has to wonder if this county is some sort of twilight zone of beauty.

“Hey,” She tries to sound casual and cool.

“Take a seat, you guys! Get comfortable!” Kim motions to the extra space at the end of the log.

Trixie gladly takes the cue, gracefully sitting next to Adore, and Katya takes the seat on Trixie’s other side.

“Give me that sweet, sweet gasoline-in-a-bottle.” Adore wiggles her fingers at the alcohol in either of Trixie’s hands, and she obliges.

Adore pours the vodka into everyone’s cups, clearly too drunk to care about mixing liquor, or even care about the pure horror of drinking straight vodka. Even Pearl doesn’t contest when she pours the vodka straight into her half-empty can of Budweiser. “You want any?” She offers Katya.

“No, I’m okay.” Katya tells her. Even though she’s not necessarily an alcoholic, she knows alcohol is an enabler and she needs to be as clear headed tonight as possible. Alcohol and methamphetamines are practically best friends.

“No vodka for the Russian, really?” Adore asks incredulously.

“That’s pussy vodka.” Katya tells her, laying on her thickest Russian accent.

Adore laughs delightedly stomping her feet on the ground. “We’ll try to get you something stronger next time, then!” Adore promises, and Katya immediately regrets having said anything.

Adore passes the bottle over to Trixie, who promptly looks around the bonfire with wide eyes. “Where are the cups?”

“You’re two hours too late for cups.” Adore tells her.

Trixie sighs deeply, and raises the bottle to drink straight from its lip. Suddenly, everyone piled onto the log is screaming for her to chug, entirely out of unison. Some of the surrounding party-goers start to shout along just for the excitement of it, but Trixie can only pull off two large gulps before pushing the bottle back into Adore’s hands.

She hisses loudly, pulling a grimace and shaking her head. “Oh, I hated that so much.” She whines. Everyone cheers and laughs at her efforts anyways, including Katya who realizes that she might have to be the designated driver tonight if Trixie keeps at it.

“So, Katya,” Violet begins, four spots away from her and forced to shout over the music and chatter of the party to be heard, “You’re from Russia, yeah? Like Nikita?”

“Yeah. Also Boston.” Katya confirms. She wonders if everyone in this town knows about her mother, and about herself by association. But, then again, her mother’s move was possibly the most exciting thing to happen to this town in years.

Violet lets out a loud sigh that Katya can’t hear, but she can see. “God that’s so fucking cool! I fucking hate this town,”

There’s a small chorus of agreement from them all. “Yeah, if I have to kick one of Trixie’s cows out of my yard one more time, I will, myself, have a cow.” Kim says pointedly towards Trixie.

“It’s not my fault Cream likes your weird alfalfa garden.” Trixie tries to defend herself.

Kim rolls her eyes at Trixie, taking a long swig out of her blue plastic cup. Trixie laughs loudly at Kim’s melodramatic gesture, maybe too loudly, and Kim joins in with just as much vigor.

“Are you guys all high school graduates?” Katya asks the group, leaning forward to press herself against her knees and crane her neck to see the entire line of girls.

“They are, but I’m still a senior.” Adore shrugs.

“The rest of us are just leechers at this point, I guess.” Pearl chimes in.

“Any of you going to college or trade school or something?” Katya questions. She feels awkward grilling them, but she knows that people love talking about themselves and in turn, love the person asking them to talk about themselves.

Violet snorts and makes a face of disgust, “College is overrated. I’m not gonna give thousands of dollars to the government just to have some pretentious bowtie tell me about photosynthesis.”

“Yeah, why go to college when I can lie in bed and do drugs all day, right?” Pearl shrugs, and Katya feels that hit a little too close.

“She’s lying, she’s trying to be a DJ but she’s too embarrassed to tell you.” Violet says exasperatedly, “And I’m trying to save up money to move out and become a model! Maybe in New York! Maybe in Los Angeles! Maybe in Chicago. Maybe in, uh… New York?” Violet spreads her arms out to do an exaggerated reiteration of jazz hands, and it suddenly becomes glaringly obvious how much she’s had to drink.

“ _ We _ are going to college though, because fuck us, right?” Naomi says, gesturing to herself, Kim, and Trixie.

“Yeah, fuck us straight to hell.” Adore chimes in.

“Not you, you twelve year old slut.” Naomi snaps, and Adore only laughs in response.

“But, uh, fuck us straight to hell, I guess.” Kim shrugs, and they all laugh heartily.

“That’s not fair!” Adore whines grumpily. “Why does she say the exact same thing but it’s like, a thousand times funnier!”

“It’s like that one time in Henderson’s class, you know, when he asked about the Rembrandt and you replied, and then Kim replied, but he only listened to Kim!” Violet brings up, waving her arms about for emphasis. 

From there on out, there are a lot of inside jokes and stories that Katya tries to loosely follow along with. It’s somewhat alienating, but Katya pretends it isn’t because she so desperately wishes to jive well with all of them. She wants to make new friends and form bonds and learn through human interaction. 

Every few minutes or so, Trixie glances back at Katya to gauge how much fun she’s having, to which Katya always grins as brightly as she can because, truly, she’s trying to enjoy this. She can see Trixie is somewhat removed from the group. Not quite as much as Katya is as a newcomer, but just enough for Katya to be able to notice it in the way she only laughs at half of the jokes and awkwardly smiles through the rest of them.

She doesn’t get to spend too long dwelling on the observation, however, when there’s a sudden shadow casted over Trixie’s face and a tall figure hovering above her.

“Trixie, hey.” A boy, objectively handsome because of course anyone associated with her had to be, greets awkwardly.

“Oh, what’s up Milk.” Trixie returns, just as awkward.

“Milk?” Katya asks off-handedly without being quite aware she was.

“It’s just nickname from elementary school that stuck.” Milk shrugs, clearly not interested in talking about it.

“Somebody said ‘penis’ and he literally just spewed chocolate milk out of his nose.” Adore tells her, and everyone starts laughing at the communal memory.

“Just fucking milk! Everywhere!” Violet slaps her own thighs with glee.

“Just at the word penis.” Pearl grins.

Trixie’s giggling next to her, looking up at Milk who just looks embarrassed.

“Yeah, I’m just glad nobody thought to nickname me Penis, because that would be much more difficult to explain to my mom.” He laughs nervously, and Violet and Adore are sent back into uproarious laughter.

“Penis!” Violet wheezes out. “Your name could really be Penis!”

Katya wonders why everyone’s still letting Violet refill her cup.

“Mind if I sit?” Milk points to the spot between Katya and Trixie, and Trixie is immediately nodding and scooting over towards Adore to make room for him.

Katya feels her heart sink as she slides further towards the edge of the log in compliance. She recognizes the giggle, the eagerness, the anxiety-ridden greeting. It was stupid, really, to think the pastor’s daughter was into girls, let alone into  _ Katya _ . 

Milk is big and broad, so it’s a tight fit as his left side presses against Trixie and his right into Katya. She has to position her legs outward with her back facing Milk and the entire group of girls for him to fit, and it hurts Katya in a way she’s too prideful to admit.

Instead, she stares into the glowing fire until the heat radiating off of it make her eyes water and burn. She imagines leaping through it in some sort of grand ballet-like fashion, wonders if she would survive. Maybe she would come out completely unscathed like Daenerys, and be revered as some sort of New-New Testament Messiah. Or maybe she would burn like hot coal all the way to the ICU. Either way, Katya feels the urge to jump in deep in her bones.

She can’t see Trixie in this position, but she can  _ hear  _ her, the nervous laughter and tentative tone, which is almost worse. In her mind, she scratches Trixie off the list of enchantingly pretty girls who could ever possibly fall in love with her.

Raven from Teen Titans

Jemma Koski, From Freshman Year Art Class

That One Hot Topic Manager

Sarah from the Supermarket

Pink-Haired Girl on the Bus

Sasha & Shea

Trixie Mattel

The list grows longer, and Katya can feel her lifespan physically shortening before her eyes. She glances around the party to spot anyone who could fill the pussy-sized hole in her chest, but everyone seems too far gone already. The makeshift dance floor is all flailing arms and messy grinding, which isn’t necessarily conducive to a sexy hookup. She shifts slightly and cranes her neck to look at the group, and her eyes stray to Pearl. The undercut and plaid point Katya towards an obvious conclusion, and she’s definitely hot. Katya feels her hopes rise as she sizes Pearl up. But then, Violet is collapsing into her side drunkenly, and Pearl’s fingers are curled around her waist and  _ god  _ Katya is so alone.

She thinks she really might jump into the fire.

“Katya, right?” A woman squats down next to her log, smiling up at her with a chipped tooth and sleepy eyes.

Katya looks down at her, and can feel the very stars and planets shift to align. Not romantically like she might like, but in an unsettling way that sits deep in her stomach. Katya’s not usually one to judge someone so quickly and harshly, but this woman is  _ certainly  _ a witch.

Her color scheme doesn’t immediately scream gothic member of the dark - orange hair and a green dress definitely don’t tell Katya about her possible brush with necromancy - but it’s something far beyond that. Something that makes Katya think that when she looks into her eyes and smiles, she can see exactly when and how she’ll die.

“That would be I.” Katya affirms.

“I’m Jinkx.”

_ A witch’s name. _

Jinkx raises a hand up in greeting, and her gaze turns to the fire in front them. Katya considers asking her if she can see the next religious prophet when she stares into it, but decides not to out of pure fear that Jinkx may answer her honestly.

“You applied at the library, right?” She asks, still staring into the fiery depths of the bonfire.

Katya feels herself stop breathing. “Uh, yeah, I did.”

Jinkx nods, visibly already aware that Katya did, in fact, apply to the library.

“Is that, like some third eye vision that just gave you insight into my entire existence? Did the fire spirits whisper that to you?” She asks nervously, fingers picking at the loose thread of the rip in her jeans. She’s only partially joking.

Jinkx laughs delightedly. “No, I just work there.”

Katya’s laughing too, in that next instant, because she’s fully aware she’s being ridiculous. Every thought she’s had in this town has been ridiculous, she decides. “I really thought you were a Salem survivor, or something.”

Jinkx is still laughing as she shrugs, “I mean, I do some Tarot stuff for fun, but it’s not that serious.”

“I bet your readings are almost always spot-on.”

“I’m not going to talk up my skills in shuffling a deck and laying out cards, but I’m quite talented.” She responds cheekily. “Really, though, the library.”

“Right, the library.” Katya’s back straightens like she’s just sat down for a boardroom meeting about who’s been eating all of Sharon From HR’s tuna salad.

“The interview’s really just a formality, you know. Nobody else even applied.” Jinkx tells her.

“Oh thank god.” Katya breathes out, “Because my resume is absolutely terrible. The woman who interviewed me -”

“Ginger?”

“Yeah! Ginger! She pointed to a red stain in the top right corner and asked if it was ketchup, and I swear I went on a five minute long explanation of how it’s sriracha because it has a thinner consistency than ketchup and therefore makes a more watery stain. Jinkx, I genuinely couldn’t stop talking about that stupid sriracha stain. I couldn’t!” Katya puts her head in her hands exasperatedly, and Jinkx is cackling.

When her laughter dies down, Jinkx shifts slightly and shrugs. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, really.”

Katya hums softly in response, looking back to the fire ahead of her. It’s relieving, but not quite enough now that she’s aware that Jinkx doesn’t practice witchcraft.

Trixie’s giggle comes back into focus, and Katya’s reminded of why she wants to pull a Van Gogh and cut her ear off right now. She looks down to her shoes, letting the toe of her sneakers trace eights into the dirt as she tries to ignore the smooth cadence of Milk’s voice.

“It’s just a passing thing, I think.” Jinkx says, barely above a whisper.

“What?” Katya asks, both because she could barely hear it and because she wasn’t sure if she heard it right.

Jinkx tilts her chin up in Trixie and Milk’s direction. “I wouldn’t take it too seriously. They flirt at every party.”

Katya knows there’s no way anyone not within a one foot radius could hear Jinkx’s soft voice, but it makes her lean in closer anyways. “ _ Every  _ party?”

“Trixie doesn’t come to parties much, but Milk is always here when she does.”

“Oh.”

“I wouldn’t be too concerned. Neither has ever made a move.”

Jinkx smiles at her like she knows it all. It’s as if she’s already held her palm in her hand and read every single crevice and wrinkle for what it’s worth. She’s spoken to her dead grandfather late at night at the seance table Katya is sure she has. She’s read Katya’s Tarot within her own mind, turning over the cards somewhere in her frontal lobe. Katya is willing to admit that maybe Jinkx isn’t a witch necessarily, but she has to be, to some extent, made up of supernatural stardust.

“I, uh, I’m not into her, though.” Katya says nervously, imagining herself swoon over Trixie’s every word and the entire party rolling her eyes at just how visibly dumb and desperate she is.

Jinkx raises her index finger to her lips, shaking her head dismissively. “Sh, don’t worry.” She’s standing up, rolling her shoulders and stretching out her legs. “I’ll see you at the library, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Katya breathes out. “See you then.”

And then Jinkx disappears into the night. Well, not quite: she walks to the s’mores station and starts roasting a marshmallow maybe twenty feet away with a few of her friends, but Katya prefers the idea that Jinkx fades into the horizon with only a glittering trail of slime left behind.

As if perfectly on cue, Katya can feel Milk stir against her back. He rises from the log and fades into the rest of the party with the walk of a man who’s just had a positive interaction with a female. Trixie slides back towards Katya, smiling softly.

“Sorry about that, we’re old friends. We don’t get to talk much nowadays, I guess” Trixie tells her, patting her knee apologetically.

“No it’s cool, I get it.” Katya waves her off.

Adore turns towards Trixie, grinning maniacally. “You virginal little Barbie doll, did he make his move yet?”

Everyone else’s attention is suddenly on Trixie, leaning forward excitedly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Trixie claims coyly, crossing her arms in front of herself.

“You slut, please just fuck already, I’m so tired of this! It’s like Ross and Rachel from Friends all over again! I have to watch this bullshit will-they-won’t-they plot in front of my eyes every fucking party.” Violet groans into her blue plastic cup.

Katya feels like her heart is about to plummet through her asshole and drop onto the floor right below her.

“Oh, you guys really are like Rachel and Ross. Except if Ross was hot, I guess.” Kim chimes in.

“If Ross was, like, Adonis, yeah!” Adore enthuses.

Katya feels herself bursting with a rant that Ross and Rachel weren’t even well-matched; Ross was a fucking asshole and absolutely did not deserve Rachel. But she purses her lips and keeps it inside, deciding that maybe now isn’t the best time to engage in 90s sitcom discourse.

“I don’t know, I don’t even think he likes me.” Trixie says softly, shifting uncomfortably on the log.

“Bitch! He literally came to us, a group of six - no, seven, sorry - hot girls and said, and I quote,” Naomi hold a finger up and pauses for dramatic emphasis, “ _ Hi Trixie _ . In that hot man voice.”

“He’s in love.”

“Absolutely smitten.”

“He’s rock hard for you, baby girl.”

“Katya, what do you think?” Pearl asks from the polar end of the log. “You’re new here, you have a fresh take.”

Katya takes a deep breath, looking between Trixie and Pearl. She wants to lie and say that maybe they’re reaching too hard to find something that’s not there. But Trixie’s eyes are soft and nervous, and Katya knows she can’t lie to her just because she wanted to get her pussy wet.

“I think you’re really discounting yourself here; he’s obviously  _ very  _ into you.” Katya tells her honestly.

Everyone in the group celebrates, as if Katya’s say were the final nail in the coffin.

“Are we gonna throw away a party -” Violet begins, but stops herself to reconsider her phrasing, “Are we gonna throw Trixie’s virginity a going away party?” She tries again, much slower this time.

Trixie’s face turns a bright pink, and Adore claps out of excitement, “Yes! With streamers, bitch!”

“We can have cherry shaped balloons, and we all pop them at the end of the night and confetti comes out.” Pearl suggests.

Adore and Violet screech in excitement, declaring themselves head of the official planning committee. Kim and Naomi give Trixie a sympathetic look.

“I think… I haven’t danced yet, and that’s a crime.” Trixie announces to the group as she turns to Katya expectantly.

“Oh, am I supposed to twirl you around the dirt dance floor?” Katya grins, equally as eager to escape from this conversation.

Trixie smiles in response as she stands to confront Katya directly. “Are you not my date for the evening?” She holds out her hand for Katya to take.

Katya feels her heart beat faster, stupidly so, as she takes it graciously. Trixie pulls her to the mesh of bodies, and Katya realizes she has no idea how to dance here. Is dancing somehow different in Wisconsin? Should she have brought a belt buckle to hold while she dosey-does?

She gets through a few songs with her cheesiest dance moves that have Trixie in a fit of giggles. Trixie’s dancing seems to only include arm movements while enthusiastically mouthing along to every single song, even the ones Katya is certain she doesn’t even know the actual lyrics to. Katya doesn’t doubt her own dancing skills until the pace of music abruptly changes from bubblegum pop to something distinctly country.

“Oh my god,” Trixie breathes out, aligning herself very specifically with the rest of the crowd to face a single direction.

“What’s happening?” Katya asks nervously, doing her best to follow.

Trixie looks down at her entirely bewildered. “You don’t know the Boot Scootin’ Boogie?”

“Literally none of those words were English.”

“Just follow along!” Trixie tells her.

Katya tries her best, she really does. The entire crowd is doing  _ very  _ specific kicks and turns and hops and claps, but Katya is always four steps behind them. It becomes a challenge for Katya just to avoid bumping into Trixie, who laughs throughout the entire line dance at Katya’s complete inability to understand basic choreography. If anything, she looks like a messy parody of the dance.

“C’mon, city slicker!” Trixie sticks her tongue out at her as she kicks up her obnoxiously pink cowboy boots.

Katya’s panting just at the effort she’s putting in to copy Trixie, and can only muster a soft, “Fuck off.”

When the song ends, Katya is simultaneously exhausted and embarrassed.

“Are you getting tired now, grandma?” Trixie teases her as they settle back into the dancing routine they seemed to set during the pop songs.

“You  _ wish _ . Not even the ache in my hip can stop these moves.” Katya responds, promptly performing a spot-on rendition of the sprinkler.

Trixie doubles over giggling, “Oh yeah, that’s the showstopper,”

They only get a few more songs in before Katya is too tired to pretend that she isn’t. Luckily, Trixie seems to catch on to her dwindling energy.

“Do you want to head out?” She suggests softly, barely audible over the speaker system.

Katya’s torn, because on one hand she really just wants to lie down, but on the other, she doesn’t want to be the reason Trixie has to cut her party time short.

“I don’t know, do you?”

Trixie shrugs, “I wouldn’t mind.” She escorts the two of them out of the crowd of sloppy teenagers and back to the logs where the girls are still gathered around. “Hey, I think we’re gonna head out.” Trixie announces to them.

“First, you show up two hours late, and then you leave two hours early? It’s not right, Trixie Mattel.” Adore lectures her.

“You can chastise me about the party manners later.” Trixie promises, endearingly patting Adore’s hair. “But for now, I must leave you in the care of these blackout drunks.”

“I’m driving them home,” Naomi assures her, and she has the dead eyes of a designated driver.

“Good,” Trixie tells her, grabbing her backpack from where Naomi seemed to have been guarding it between her legs. She spares a glance at the two empty bottles of liquor next to her, and wearily moves her gaze to Violet, who’s entirely passed out on Pearl’s lap. “Okay, stay safe everyone.”

“It was great meeting you all.” Katya tells them sincerely.

Everyone bids them a safe night, and Katya spends the entire walk to the truck reviewing the emotional turbulence of the night. Trixie’s not gay and not into Katya, but she can learn to accept that. She can settle with friendship, and is actually grateful for it. Even if later that night, she would definitely mourn for her poor, gay heart, she was ultimately happy to be friends with the terminally and tragically straight Trixie Mattel.

“Are you okay to drive?” Katya asks abruptly, the sudden image of Trixie downing two large gulps of vodka flashing through her mind.

Trixie pauses with her hand wrapped securely around the door handle. “Oh, for sure. I drank the equivalent to, like, half a Miller Light.”

“Are you sure?” Katya narrows her eyes at her.

“Honey, I’m sure I could drink your dad, grandfather,  _ and  _ great grandfather under the table.” Trixie smiles proudly.

Katya snorts, both at the image of Trixie trying to outdrink a lineage of corpses and at the vivid memory of Trixie barely being able to down two gulps of vodka. Despite this, she holds her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I get it, you’re from the midwest.”

They both climb up into the truck and settle into their seats silently. Trixie jams her keys into the ignition and turns them forcefully. The engine roars, sputters, and dies. She has to try three times for the truck to actually start, jaw clenched in uncertainty each time. The CD picks back up, and Landslide resumes from exactly where it was cut off. Stevie Nicks’ voice is soft against the backdrop of distant bass and laughing.

Even though the engine is thrumming and Trixie’s hands are wrapped tightly around the wheel, it stays stagnant. She chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully, staring out the windshield. 

“I don't think I want to go home yet.” Trixie breathes out finally.

Katya turns slightly to look at her fully. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Trixie turns her head to look back at Katya, “It’s barely midnight, and I don’t think we’ve milked this night for all it is yet.”

“ _ Milked _ .”

“Katya.”

“It’s funny because you have cows.”

“ _ Katya. _ ”

“Okay, sorry.” Katya digs her fingertips into her eyes, rubbing until stars paint themselves onto her eyelids. “I’m in.” She says finally.

Trixie smiles so brightly and genuinely that Katya can't find it in herself to regret setting her old lady sleeping schedule aside for her. “Fantastic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback on the last chapter, thank you guys so much! again, comments and constructive criticism is very welcome! y'all can catch me at @gayforests if you want to scream with me about something  
> behind the scenes fun facts:  
> \- this chapter was originally 11k words, but i split it up into two digestible chapters. this means the next chapter is almost okay to go!  
> \- i did write the interview scene w katya and ginger, but it was cut for length (and also the general movement of the fic itself). it now sits stagnant in the depths of my google docs.  
> \- i tried to post this chapter 3 separate times but ran into DIFFICULTIES. sorry if you got several post notifications! it kept cutting it off halfway through the first like 500 words, so shoutout to those of you who actually read just those incomplete 500 words and still commented before i noticed what happened, yall are troopers.


	3. i forget about time and space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katya, in truth, does not want to know about Milk. She would be absolutely content to live the rest of her life only associating Milk with dairy products and morning cereal, but she knows she needs to listen to Trixie talk about her romantic interest to remind herself where the lines of reality and her own personal dreamworld lie. “Tell me all about it.”

They drive long enough for Rumours to finish and loop back into its first track. Katya has successfully held off the urge to ask Trixie where they’re going and if they can stop at a Burger King on the way, mostly for fear that A) Trixie wouldn’t tell her and B) she's more of a Wendy’s kind of girl anyways. So, Katya keeps her mouth shut as Trixie cruises along Lake Superior's coast. The road tapers off into a sandy path that leads up to the cliffside, and Katya can’t help the anxiety swirling around her stomach when she glances out of the passenger side window and sees the vast expanse of the lake guarded by a fence of jagged rocks.

Trixie pulls over once they’ve reached an empty lookout at what has to be the apex of the rocky trail, complete with those quarter-powered super binoculars and a few decrepit picnic tables.

“Can you grab those blankets in the backseat?” Trixie requests while she leans over the center console to grab the pink backpack sitting at Katya’s feet.

Katya does as she’s told, doing her best to juggle the three thick blankets as she climbs out of the truck. Her fingers desperately grab at dangling fleece edges so they don’t drag on the asphalt and contaminate the blankets far beyond the reparation powers of Tide.

When she looks up, past the blankets securely cradled against her chest, the world seems to move in slow motion. The lake swallows her whole in that next instant: the soft roar of currents carrying away driftwood, the goosebumps prickling her arms as the cold breeze bites into her skin, and the menacingly infinite horizon stretching out in all directions. Lake SUperior is an entirely sensual destination, and refuses to be ignored. Katya’s reminded of countless spring breaks in Rhode Island, where the water was too cold to do anything besides lie on a beach towel in the sand.

Trixie shouts something inaudible to her from the other side of the truck, and Katya nods and pretends to have heard. She risks another glance at the lake, where dark, murky water foams and bellows, before following Trixie to one of the shoddy picnic benches. Trixie climbs up onto the table, planting her feet firmly on the bench and grinning up at Katya. She joins Trixie, only hesitating when the ancient wood creaks dangerously beneath her feet.

Trixie reaches out to free Katya of one of her blankets, but her fingers freeze halfway, “Is this okay, by the way? I know I said I would take you home if you weren’t having fun, and that’s still totally on the table if you would prefer to do that.”

Katya shakes her head fervently, “I will tell you the moment I want to go home, and right now, I am perfectly fine where we are - wherever it is that we are right now.”

Trixie smiles in response, plucking the baby blue blanket from the top of the pile. Katya lets the other two fall in the space between them, untangling a pink one from a red one to wrap around herself snugly.

“I may have hoarded a bottle of rosé.” Trixie breathes out, shrugging her backpack off her shoulders and placing it down between her legs. She unzips the bag and reaches into it to pull out a baby pink bottle of wine. “Just in case, you know.”

“Wow, somewhere Violet is absolutely _heartbroken_ you kept it from her, I’m sure.”

“Violet would’ve gulped it down in eighteen seconds if she saw it, and then would promptly be wheeled away in a gurney.”

Katya grins, “Oh, and you don’t think I’m going to just chug it? That’s a lot of trust you’ve put in me, Trixie Mattel.”

Trixie narrows her eyes in warning as she twists off the cap. She tilts the bottle towards Katya, and the question, while unspoken, is clear.

Katya hesitates. Everything her sponsor ever warned her about drinking during recovery flashing across her eyelids in bright neon letters. She takes the bottle with nervous fingers. With the neck of the bottle in her hands, she can almost feel the heat of alcohol rushing through her chest. She can almost feel what is _so_ close to floating far above the clouds - what is _so_ close to the feeling that ruined her ability to function. It’s not a drug, but it’s something that will hit her hard and make her feel too good to live outside of it.

“Uh, actually, I shouldn’t.” Katya decides, handing the rosé back to Trixie.

“Are you sure? Is it the type, I know some people are kind of picky about their wine and -” Trixie asks nervously.

“No, no, I just, uh, shouldn’t.” Katya shrugs off cryptically.

Trixie nods like she understands, pulling out a Fiji Water from her backpack to hand to Katya instead. It’s an important step in her recovery: drinking water next to Trixie as she sips her rosé. She feels giddy at the thought of boasting this to her therapist, or even calling her rehab center and asking to speak to the nurse who found her sobbing on the floor her third night in. They would all be so proud of Katya.

They drink quietly. The lake seems to speak for both of them, calmly swaying in the emptiness of their silence. Neither say anything until Trixie’s bottle is halfway empty, and Katya can feel the drunken warmth flooding Trixie’s organs practically radiating off of her.

“Tell me about yourself.” Trixie whispers softly, leaning against Katya so they’re shoulder-to-shoulder and only the third unclaimed blanket separates them. Even with Trixie slouching, she’s still considerably taller than Katya.

Katya considers the question, and isn’t necessarily sure where she’s meant to start or which of her qualities are intrinsic to her character. “Uh, well, my name is Yekaterina -”

“Yekaterina?” Trixie interrupts, looking at her with big eyes.

“Yeah, it’s like the Russian Catherine, basically.”

“Whoa, that’s so cool. I just have Beatrice, which is like, what you would name your baby if you actually gave birth to an elderly woman.” Trixie rolls her eyes, and Katya cackles.

“When she comes out with a knitting pattern for a lovely summer shawl in her little wrinkly fist.”

“And the latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens.”

Katya’s laughter turns into wheezing, and Trixie just smiles down at her, clearly proud of her own joke.

“Tell me more!” She demands when Katya’s calmed down. “Give me insight into Yekaterina Zamoshhhhhhhha.”

“Love the effort there.” Katya laughs, clapping her hands together. “Uh, well, I’m a Taurus. I’m not a big fan of pastas or cheeses, controversially so. And I do art stuff sometimes.”

Trixie squints her eyes at her. Katya imagines her trying to process and connect the three pieces of information, mentally pinning them to a cork board with Katya’s name scrawled across the top. “Okay so first of all: I have no opinions on Tauruses. Second: I have very strong opinions about pastas and cheese, and you are dead wrong about them. Third: art!” Trixie counts each tidbit of information on her fingers, seeming to experience the full spectrum of emotion as she burns through them.

“Am I supposed to respond in a list like you just did?”

“No, just tell me about your art! I’m over the cheese part.”

“I’m so glad you are so quick to forgive.” Katya takes a long drink of her water to buy herself enough time to construct a complete sentence in her head. “Uh, I’m going to art school - or, I _went_ to art school. Not sure what the proper tense is. I’m on a break from art school, I guess.”

“What kind of art?”

“All kinds. I really like painting and drawing, but sometimes I sculpt or do shitty photography projects. I’m a bit of a renaissance woman.” Katya tries to make herself sound as unpretentious as possible, but it’s hard to have gone to art school and not sound pretentious, she’s come to realize.

“Am I ever going to get to see some of your art?”

Katya feels herself flush deeply. She didn’t bring any of her work to Wisconsin with her, so the only art she has is the art she’s produced thus far or the art her mother kept from high school. Both are immeasurably embarrassing.

“Maybe someday. I have sketchbooks you could look through if you’re interested in half-finished and nonsensical concepts.”

“I would be absolutely _honored._ ” Trixie’s eyes are soft and genuine, and it makes Katya want to pluck her own out with a pair of tongs.

“And you, Trixie Mattel? Besides being proficient in line dancing and cow care, what else defines your existence on this planet?”

Trixie thinks for a moment, her fingers picking at the white label on the rosé bottle. “Well, I’m Trixie, I’m a cusp Leo, but I don’t really think I’m supposed to believe in astrology. Uh, I’m not really sure what else to tell you. I feel like you already know a lot about me.”

“What? I know, like, three things, and all three of those things are about your cows.”

“I mean, you know about the cows, you know I’m going to school, you know my family’s religious, you’ve met all my friends; there’s really not a lot for me to tell you about.” She shrugs.

“Okay, well, tell me about school. What school are you going to? What’s your major?” Katya prods.

“Uh, I’m going to Gogebic Community College. It’s out in Ironwood, just past the Michigan border. It’s about an hour and a half away from here.”

“Holy shit, that’s a long commute.” Katya breathes out. She can’t fathom taking the time to wake up over two hours before classes start; she could barely manage to get out of bed when her classes were an eight minute bus ride. “Is that the closest school?”

“No, there’s Northland College, that’s thirty minutes away. Kim and Naomi go there, but I, uh, missed the application deadline.” Trixie averts her eyes, and Katya frowns in sympathy.

“That sucks, but at least you’re going!” Katya tries to sound as uplifting as possible, “What are you studying?”

Trixie gives another noncommittal shrug, “I don’t really know. I’m just trying to cover the basics before I transfer out, so I declared liberal arts, which is super broad and vague.”

Katya hums. She wants to keep asking Trixie about her schooling: what she _wants_ to study, how the stress of higher education is treating her, how she’s financing her education. But Katya can clearly see Trixie is uninterested in talking about it.

“Do you think the viewfinder works?” Katya asks in lieu of pushing the school matter further.

Trixie’s mouth scrunches to the side for a moment, directing her gaze towards the binoculars. “I don’t know, actually. At some point they did, I’m sure.”

Katya gets up from the bench to approach it, and she can hear Trixie’s feet crunch against loose gravel as she follows her. It really dawns on Katya how high up the cliffside is as she stands in front of the viewfinder, and suddenly there’s a seventy-five foot drop before her. Only a shin-high stone wall separates her from a gruesome fall into the abyss.

She turns her attention to the viewfinder, and reads the faded instructions printed on its front. “Do we have any quarters?” She turns to Trixie, who still has her blanket wrapped tightly around herself to combat the icy breeze. “To clarify what I mean: do _you_ have any quarters because I definitely do not.”

“Maybe in the truck? Sometimes I just empty change into the cup holder, but I’m not sure if there are any quarters there.”

“I’ll check.” Katya offers.

She jogs over to the truck, quickly searching every crevice for quarters. In the cupholders, there’s $3.27 almost entirely in dimes and nickels, so she’s forced to search through the center console, dashboard, and glove compartment. In the end, she’s found a full dollar in quarters. In addition to money, she’s found a stash of CDs and an ancient Happy Meal figurine of Fiona from Shrek. Katya feels relieved to know that Trixie listens to music other than Fleetwood Mac, and that she has fantastic taste in DreamWorks films.

When she returns to the binoculars, Trixie is standing at the edge of the lookout, her shins pressing against the edge of the jagged stone wall as she stares straight down. Katya slides next to her with soft footsteps and a jangling handful of quarters.

They don’t say anything for a moment, they just stare down at the empty space below them. When Katya was younger, she would call these Null Zones: spaces that are too far for anyone to feasibly reach without facing certain death. Space (on account of horrifying black holes and the slowness of time), Mrs. McNellis’ backyard (on account of an evil gaggle of chihuahuas guarding it), the bedroom of Jemma From Art Class (on account of tragic heterosexuality), and now the sharp depth of the cliff (on account of her own newfound fear for death and all things that come with it).

“You ever think about jumping?” Trixie says softly.

Suddenly, Katya feels a heaviness surround her like a coat, and she realizes exactly the danger of drinking on a cliffside. “Uh-”

“Not literally.” Trixie interjects quickly, “Well, kind of literally. I’m not going to kill myself or anything up here, that’s what I’m trying to clarify.”

A beat of silence.

“I just bet it’d make you feel alive.” Trixie continues softly.

“Maybe before every bone in your body shatters when you hit the rocks.” Katya says, trying to lighten the mood, but it only serves to make it feel more grim.

Trixie hums like she already knows, and she’s already decided the death that awaits is worth the split second of free falling it would grant you.

Another beat.

“I have the quarters,” Katya decides on weakly.

Trixie looks at her and nods, stepping away from the edge of the cliffside. “Cool,” She breathes out. Katya feels her entire body exhale.

She inserts two quarters, pulls the lever, and looks into the viewfinder. She’s met with only darkness. “Shit,” She grumbles.

“Try inserting two more. Just in case.”

Katya does, but the binoculars still refuses to show her what lies beyond the field of view of her regular human eyes. Trixie huffs, slamming the palm of her hand against the side of it. “Nothing in this fucking town works,” She breathes out.

Katya hits it too, just for good measure. And then Trixie hits it again. And then Katya hits it again. It’s a hate crime at this point, really. Two girls beating a viewfinder at 4:23 AM.

Trixie eventually gives up, mourning her lost dollar. Katya offers to give her a dollar since it was her idea after all, but Trixie insists it’s not the monetary value of the dollar that matters; it’s the fact that the City of Bayfield may as well have stolen the dollar straight from her truck’s center console, and that’s enough to throw a fit.

They end up back on the bench, where Trixie immediately takes a long drink of rosé and snuggles warmly into Katya’s side. “We don’t need a viewfinder,” She mumbles softly against Katya’s shoulder. “It’s pretty enough out here as is.” Trixie cranes her head up towards the stars, and Katya does the same.

“Yeah,” Katya agrees, “It is.”

There’s a long silence between them as they stare up at the stars. Katya had never seen the night sky so clearly. In Boston, you were lucky to see thirty stars through their polluted fraction of the stratosphere, but here in the middle of nowhere, the sky is so heavily freckled with constellations that Katya swears she can make out the shape of the Milky Way.

It could have been a full hour of Trixie slowly sipping the rest of her rosé while Katya tries to remember anything she learned from her freshman year astronomy class. Or it could have been a slow fifteen minutes; Katya has no way to tell, and frankly, doesn’t care to.

It’s Trixie who breaks the silence. “Tell me something really personal about you. Something you wouldn't tell someone about until your fourth date.” Trixie’s voice is slow and calculated, like she’s been rehearsing the sentence in her head for fear of it coming out wrong or too slurred.

“I, uh, I don't know. What do you want to know?”

Trixie hums softly, cradling the empty rosé bottle to her chest. “Tell me about what it was like to leave Russia. I love origin stories, like in superhero comics. Give me your superhero origin story.” She smiles widely at Katya, pink lipstick smeared slightly along her lower lip.

Katya considers it for a moment, playing through the formative years of her life in her head. “Well, Russia sucked.” She scoffs as she says because, really, it’s an understatement, “My mom had always wanted to move to America, for as long as I could remember. She talked about it all the time - we’d be eating bread and boiled potatoes for dinner and she’d tell me that when she finally got us to America, she’d cook us meatloaves and cherry pies and everything she saw on American TV.”

“That’s cute,” Trixie mumbles softly, shifting so her chin is propped up on Katya’s shoulder and her lips are centimeters from Katya’s cheek.

“When my dad died, all his savings transferred to my mom, and she took out a loan. That and his savings were just barely enough to bribe some fisherman to sneak us onto a cargo ship heading to America. And here we are.” Katya continues.

Trixie chews on her bottom lip for a moment, considering a reply, “I'm sorry about your dad.” She pouts at Katya. One of her hands shift underneath the fleece blanket on Katya’s lap to softly tangle itself with Katya’s in condolence.

Katya shrugs, staring down at the lump in the blankets where their fingers are interlaced. She feels dirty for relishing how soft and warm Trixie’s hand is, especially in the context of the dead dad conversation.

“I didn't know him very well, I was young.”

“I didn't know my dad very well before he died either.” Trixie sympathizes with her.

Katya’s eyes move up to Trixie’s, and there's an ungodly amount of compassion in them. Katya knows that if Trixie wasn't straight and this were a real date, this is where they would kiss and fall hopelessly in love. She would lean in, and Trixie’s lips would be the softest lips she had ever kissed. It would be like silk sheets, after having slept in a scratchy nylon-cotton blend your entire life. They would kiss and hold hands until the sun peeked over the lake and the seagulls screeched.

Katya blinks hard as a heavy guilt pools in her stomach at her own thoughts. She can’t even use the guise of alcohol to brush off her romantic, and admittedly horny, thoughts.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Katya says, finally.

“Not your fault.” Trixie brushes off, “I don't mean for this to sound weird, but it's cool both our dads are dead.”

“It sounded weird.”

“Okay, what I _mean_ is that it's nice to find someone who I share this incredibly specific and personal thing in common with.”

Katya mulls over the thought for a moment. “Dead Dad Club?”

Trixie grins brightly, pulling their joined hands out of the blankets and raising them up into view like a demonstration of their newfound bond, “Dead Dad Club.”

“And what about you, Trixie Mattel? What’s your fourth-date-secret?”

“The dead dad thing doesn’t count?” She asks incredulously.

“No, that was technically _my_ thing, you just piggy backed onto it. It’s an illegitimate secret.”

Trixie huffs in response, but doesn’t contest. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

Katya pretends to think about it, “Tell me about _Milk_.” She hates that she sounds like the adults who pestered her about the boy at school who pulled on her pigtails so hard she fell and broke her wrist, insisting it was because he liked her.

There’s a visible shift in the air around them. Trixie slips her fingers out from Katya’s grip to sit back and raise a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “You want to know about Milk?”

Katya, in truth, does not want to know about Milk. She would be absolutely content to live the rest of her life only associating Milk with dairy products and morning cereal, but she knows she needs to listen to Trixie talk about her romantic interest to remind herself where the lines of reality and her own personal dreamworld lie. “Tell me all about it.”

Trixie bites her lip in consideration. “Okay, well… I don’t really know what there is to say. He’s cute and I think he likes me.” She shrugs indifferently, turning her attention back to the peeling rosé label.

“And? Do you like him back?”

Trixie hesitates for a moment too long, “Yeah, I mean, he’s cute. He’s handsome. Uh, my parents love him.”

“Okay, so your parents like him. But do  _you_ like him.”

Trixie’s quiet for a minute, staring down at where her fingers are fiddling with the label’s edge, slowly pulling it off the bottle. For a moment, Katya worries she’s overstepped her boundaries, but she responds before Katya can dwell on the thought, “I don’t know. I think I’m just nervous about dating, really. It makes it hard to be sure if I like him.”

“You’re nervous? What could you, the pinnacle of midwestern beauty, possibly have to be nervous about?” Katya asks, and then pauses because she’s not entirely sure if _midwestern beauty_ is a compliment.

Trixie snorts, shaking her head. “I just kind of feel like puking when I think about it too much. It’s just - I missed a lot of experiences that teenagers get to grow up with. Everyone was making out or whatever, and my dad was trying to teach me the quadratic formula in his home-office-turned-classroom.”

Katya hums in response, and the pieces click in her head. “Oh, so you were homeschooled.”

“Yeah, starting eighth grade. My dad just thought it’d be easier, I guess; he wouldn’t have to worry about me all the time. I still got invited to parties, which was probably my opportunity for those, uh… experiences, but I started to not be able recognize anyone, you know. Even the people I knew, they were just so _different_.”

Katya nods like she understands, but she knows she could never _really_ understand. She lost her virginity at fourteen to some guy on the basketball team, and promptly puked on his Air Jordans as she was putting her jeans back on.

“Is that why you’re nervous? All the physical stuff? Because really, boys are _so_ easy to please.”

Trixie laughs a soundless, shoulder-shaking laugh. “I don’t know.” She shrugs, still smiling softly.

Katya waits a moment to see if Trixie will continue talking, but she seems to have instead occupied herself with picking at the white paper streaks left in the label’s wake. “Dating is scary.” Katya offers sympathetically.

Trixie nods in agreement. “Yeah.”

Katya doesn’t have the heart or the stomach to push the conversation any further. Instead, she lets the conversation turn to animal crackers and Southeast Asian fruits and whatever else Drunk Trixie has on her mind. They ramble together until Trixie’s head is buried in Katya’s shoulder and the sound of her soft snores sync with the lake currents. Katya considers briefly carrying her to the passenger seat of her truck and driving them both home, but feels lethargy roll over her like a blanket before she can entertain the thought for too long.

 

★★★

 

Katya wakes up to an unperceptive, yet persistent, State Trooper shaking her shoulder. She’s lying back on the picnic table now, Trixie sprawled horizontally over her lap. The sun is bright against her eyes, and the squawk of seagulls ring in her ears.

“Ma’am?” The state trooper asks tentatively, prodding her with his flashlight.

Katya can only groan in response as her arms stretch out behind her like they might when waking up in bed on a Saturday morning.

“Ma’am, are you alright?”

“Hm? Yeah,” Katya brushes off half-heartedly.

The State Trooper - Josiah, Trixie calls him when explaining why they were sleeping on a picnic bench at 9:00 AM - doesn’t leave the lookout until both Katya and Trixie are sitting in the pickup truck, and even then, waits until Katya gives him a thumbs-up to assure that everything is fine.

Trixie goes on an apologetic rant the entire drive back into town. She apologizes for the blazing sunburn that now covers half of Katya’s face, the bird poop on one of her own blankets, having drank the entire bottle of rosé, keeping Katya out so late; everything Trixie could possibly apologize for, she does. Katya continuously insists that it was no hassle, that she had fun, and that it was just as much her own fault.

Still, Trixie looks like a kicked puppy when they finally reach their quaint suburban homes and part ways. Katya, at the very least, has the sense to ask Trixie for her phone number before she returns to her own property. Just in case there’s a fire, or Trixie gets stranded and needs a valiant hero to rescue her. It’s only rational.

When Katya gets back inside her house, her mother is standing at the kitchen counter with a kale smoothie in one hand and a book on _Decluttering Your Life_ in her other.

“Yekaterina, Солнышко, where have you been?” Her mother cries as soon as she notices Katya trying to sneak back into her room. “And your skin!” She drops the book on the counter, rushing forward to look at Katya’s half-baked face with her free hand.

“I know, I know, I should’ve called or texted.” Katya lulls her head from side to side, feigning boredom for a lecture she hasn’t even been given yet.

Her mother only gives her a disapproving look. “Bathroom cabinet there is, uh,” Her mother pauses, “Green plant, good for burns, cold goo -”

“Aloe?”

“Yes, aloe lotion. Apply many.”

Katya nods, promises she’ll do so when she wakes up from her nap.

 

★★★

 

(1:43) **dumpster fire** : got the job @ the library

(1:46) **Sasha** : Congrats!

(1:47) **[Th]orgy** : knew u’d get it :D

(1:48) **dumpster fire** : a witch i met friday night also knew id get it

(1:49) **[Th]orgy** : details???? context??? anything???

(1:49) **Ajajaja** : ¡ la llorona !

(1:50) **dumpster fire** : no context

(1:50) **dumpster fire** : but she’s my coworker now btw

(1:50) **dumpster fire** : la llorona, the small town librarian

(1:52) **[Th]orgy** : is she single? ive been lookin for a witch bitch to charm me with her mystical fingers

(1:53) **Ajajaja** : say no, thorgy just wants her to cast evil hexes on me & make me spend all my money on cleansing incest for my apartment

(1:54) **[Th]orgy** : incest

(1:54) **Hot Topic’s #1 Customer** : Incest… LOL

(1:54) **Sasha** : Incest?

(1:55) **Willam !** : THIS DUMB BITCH

(1:55) **Willam !** : INCEST

(1:55) **dumpster fire** : i n c e s t

(1:56) **Ajajaja** : is… is it not… incest?

(1:57) **[Th]orgy** : pls nobody tell her

 

★★★

 

On Katya’s first day of work, her sunburn is peeling horrendously, and it makes Katya feel like a shedding snake, which, on some level, is pretty cool. But girls don’t want to fuck snakes. Usually. Otherwise, her first day of work flies by with no minor or major incidents.

Unsurprisingly, the days at the library that follow pass just the same: slowly and without incident. With the decline in the popularity of print media and the generally dismal population of the town, they’re lucky to see fifty customers a day. In Boston, she may have enjoyed this, but, in Bayfield, it only serves to make her restless. She didn’t get a job just to do _nothing_.

Jinkx is a pleasant coworker, at least. While Ginger sits in her office and pretends to do work (reads cooking and home magazines) and Alaska wastes away in the erotic literature section (“It’s a journey of chronicling the worst sex old men can write,” she had explained, but Katya doesn’t buy it), Jinkx sits next to Katya at the front register, shuffling a Tarot deck and pretending to read the futures of celebrities.

“The Death card - wow, Obama must be coping with handing over his title really _terribly_.”

“Actually, we’re doing a romance spread for Obama so -”

“No!” Katya cries out too loudly for the library, plugging her ears, “I don’t want to hear about his marriage problems! He and Michelle are perfect!”

Jinkx takes the cards she’s laid out and piles them back onto the deck, shrugging. “You’re not ready for the truth about their marriage.”

“The truth is their marriage is perfect and they are madly in love.”

Jinkx mouths the word “DIVORCE,” and Katya screws her eyes shut.

“Please, don’t ruin all of love for me.”

Jinkx begins to shuffle the cards again, “Well, do you want your cards read? Or do you want to do a read on Taylor Swift?” She offers.

“I _need_ to know about everything going wrong in Taylor Swift’s life.”

Jinkx is kind enough to explain every card they encounter and every spread they use to lay out the cards. Katya does her best to keep up, but really, there are a full seventy-eight cards in each deck. After a few days of restlessness and confusion, she checks out a guidebook and her own deck of cards from the spirituality section, and Jinkx promises to help on her ‘journey through the mystic arts.’

Outside of work, Katya has fallen into a strange routine. She gets home from work at eight pm, has a bowl of tomato soup, stares at a blank canvas for an hour or two, paints something incomprehensibly terrible into existence, and goes to bed at 5:00 AM. This brings up a list of unanswerable questions for Katya:

  1. What great deity is out to torture her with a terribly inconvenient and unbreakable schedule?
  2. Why does time seem to move faster than it ever has between 8:00 PM and 5:00 AM?
  3. Despite all this painting she’s doing, why hasn’t she produced a single work of art?



The third question is what truly haunts her and her budget for canvases. She tries to paint the ocean, but it comes out too calm and she scraps it. She tries to paint one of the cows, but the eyes look evil somehow and she scraps it. She even tries to paint the tomato soup, but it manages to look cold and she scraps it. She’s wasted too much canvas and too much energy on her terrible streak of contradictory art.

The worst part of this schedule happens between 4:45 AM and 5:00 AM. Even worse than the six hours of sleep it constricts her to, it’s when Trixie wakes up. Outside of her bedroom window, she can see a distant light flicker on and hear the soft mooing of cows being roused from a night of sleep. This, essentially, serves as Katya’s reminder to go to bed, just as Trixie and her cows seem to awaken. Much more difficult to stomach, however, it serves as a reminder to Katya that, yes, Trixie continues to exist, almost solely to torture Katya.

Only once during this has Katya gotten a true glimpse of Trixie: hair thrown up in a bun that had to have been constructed with her eyes half-closed and still in pajama pants as she trudged to the front yard to reset their sprinkler system. Katya had felt disgustingly creepy watching her through her bedroom window, as if turning on the sprinklers was a private event that Katya was most certainly not invited to. It felt like participating in a type of voyeurism that teenage boys are privy to.

It takes six wasted canvases, a therapy session in the next town over, and seven nights of Katya waiting on that 4:45 AM flicker of light for her to finally message Trixie. The issue with texting is that she doesn’t have any particular reason to text Trixie - no occasion to invite her to or crazy fact she found on the internet. Briefly, she considers going out of her way to find some crazy fact, but brushes that off as ridiculous. She doesn’t need an excuse to text Trixie; they’re _friends_.

 

(11:13) **Katya Z.** : hey ! any plans tmrw? i dont work saturdays...

(12:22) **Trixie Mattel** : Yes! Farmer’s Market tomorrow, you should stop by! It starts at 9:30 :)

(12:24) **Katya Z.** : are u trying to push ur cheese agenda on me?

(12:45) **Trixie Mattel** : Cream’s cheese is better than Sargento, please give her a chance.

(12:47) **Katya Z.** : … maybe

 

★★★

 

It was no surprise when Katya woke up early on Saturday morning for the Farmer’s Market. Her mother insisted on coming, deciding that she would rather die than miss a single second of pomegranate season, and Katya was in no place to deny her of that.

While Katya peruses the stalls in an attempt to make it seem like she wasn’t here solely to see Trixie, her mother makes a beeline to the pomegranates. The Farmer’s Market felt like what the ones back in Boston aspired to be. The hipster wannabe-farmer vibes are replaced with an atmosphere that stinks of hardship and an economy that’s had better times. It’s no longer white guys in funky hats selling strawberries they grew in their $1,200-a-month apartment terrace, but real, working class farmers with dirt between their fingernails and on their overalls.

There are a few familiar faces; Milk gives her a tight-lipped smile from behind his produce stall, Kim waves at her as she’s buying homemade dry jerky, and even Jinkx greets her from where she’s looking at an old woman’s stained glass creations.

It almost makes her feel like she’s already found her place in this town.

“You hear to buy some milk?” Jinkx asks suggestively, grinning and wiggling her eyebrows.

Katya shoves her shoulder, “No,” She tries to brush off, “It’s pomegranate season, you know.”

Jinkx snorts in response, turning her attention back to a glass rendering of an owl. “Right. Pomegranates.”

Katya purses her lips, “Whatever, I’ll see you on Monday.”

Jinkx only laughs because it’s clearly a win in her books. The embarrassment of having someone know about her crush, as stupid and hopeless as it is, resonates deep in her intestines.

She sees Trixie further down the row of vendors, chatting enthusiastically with a frail old man. Katya takes her time reaching her booth, even letting herself stop and feel up some mangos despite having no idea what level of firmness is indicative of its prime ripeness. Even so, when she gets to the table, Trixie is still chatting with the old man.

Trixie makes eye contact with Katya midway through a sentence, and her smile widens. She gives her a small nod, which Katya understands as the universal customer service gesture of _one second._ Next to Trixie, Bryce is sitting patiently in a fold-out chair, squishing red Play-Doh between his fingers.

“Hi Bryce,” Katya greets from across the table.

Bryce looks up at her cautiously, and it’s clear he’s at that toddler stage where he only knows about thirty words, and they’re all centered around his basic needs. He holds her eyes for a moment, but looks back down at his play-dough nervously.

He’s not a good salesman, but he sure is cute.

The old man leaves seeming satisfied, a quarter gallon of milk dangling from his fingertips. Trixie turns to her, frazzled from a busy morning. Baby hairs stick out from her ponytail at odd angles and her lip gloss has lost a decent amount of shine, but the halo of light framing her face makes up for any faults.

“Sorry about that, Jerry just loves hearing about the specific cow he’s buying from. Like, if he buys some of Cheese’s milk, he wants to know exactly how her week went so he knows it’ll be a sweet gallon.”

“Oh, and how was Dairy’s week?”

Trixie sighs exasperatedly, “I only expel such information to those intending to _purchase_.” She tells her.

“Well it’s a good thing I’m actually planning on buying every single product you have left.” Katya claims, picking up a block of cheese and holding it up for emphasis.

“Oh yeah?” Trixie challenges.

“Yeah. I will buy you out, Mattel.”

Trixie’s eyes sweep over the table, and her fingers dip into the front pocket of her overall shorts to pull out a calculator. She counts the products she has left on the counter and in her cooler, tapping away at her calculator. “So that’s about, uh, a hundred and thirty-two dollars.” She faces the calculator towards Katya as evidence.

Katya feels herself and all twelve dollars in her pocket cringe. “Okay. Well. You see. I just remembered that my wallet is, uh, broken at the moment.”

“Uh huh,” Trixie crosses her arms in front of her.

“Yeah, it just doesn’t… open. Is there like, a barter system in place here?”

“Yes, actually. The barter system right now is that you give me currency in exchange for my products.”

“And do you accept, uh, love and admiration as currency?”

Trixie narrows her eyes at Katya, “Love and Admiration? In this economy?”

Katya’s wheezing in response, and Trixie also breaks with a screeching laugh. “Really though, I have maybe ten dollars to spare and I’m here to support my neighbor.” Katya tells her breathily, still laughing.

“Well, it’s four for a gallon, one-fifty for a quarter gallon, and ten dollars for a block of cheese.” Trixie tells her, pointing at each product as she does.

Katya takes out the full twelve dollar wad from her pocket and hands it to Trixie, “So, a block of cheese and a quarter gallon, and… That should cover it, right?”

Trixie takes a moment to count it out before nodding. “It’s your choice of the bunch,” She mumbles as her fingers fumble to put away the money and fish out fifty cents in change.

Katya examines the products with a critical eye, although she’s not sure what she’s meant to be critical of. On the bottom of each gallon, scrawled out in what could only be Trixie’s handwriting (unless the pastor dot his i’s with hearts) is the name of a cow, presumably whichever one had provided the milk for its product. Katya grabs a Dairy quarter gallon and a Cream block of cheese, holding them up for Trixie to see.

“Cool! Thank you so much, Katya, it’s really great that you came.” Trixie tells her sincerely, handing over two quarters in change.

“It’s no problem! I was getting a little stir crazy anyways, all I’ve done this whole week is go to work and sleep.”

_And masturbate, create meaningless art, cry for absolutely no reason at all, etc._

“Aw, we should really hang out this week. I can send you my babysitting-slash-school schedule and we can work something out.” Trixie offers, ruffling Bryce’s hair.

Katya feels like her internal organs are swelling with air inside of her, ready to lift her off into the sky like a balloon. “That sounds good! I’ll keep you updated on the whole cheese situation.”

They part ways, and Katya leaves to collect her mother from the pomegranate vendor to take her home, a proud smile plastered on her face the entire time. The only moment it falters is when passing Milk’s stall. He doesn’t even notice Katya walking past him, he’s too busy haggling with a couple over tomato prices, but his presence is too large for Katya to ignore.

Just seeing him and his stupidly broad body and handsomely Roman nose reminds Katya that although she may keep winning battles - the barn, the party, the sleepover at the lookout, the potential hangout this upcoming week - Milk was destined to win the war. And there was really nothing Katya could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience & all your comments! y'all can scream with me about anything at gayforests on tumblr. here are some companion playlists for your consideration: [katya](https://open.spotify.com/user/helenas-hood/playlist/28dyxdmJhz7ZRmX1twz79c?si=soiWkWJaTxeeCtMtElZrrQ) and [trixie](https://open.spotify.com/user/helenas-hood/playlist/2CCVfzDuZeQetmXV77IqLO?si=UOo1Wk4eSYqPEh_L3GQTkw)


End file.
